RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 


RELIGIO    DOCTORIS 


MEDITATIONS  UPON  LIFE  AND  THOUGHT 
BY  A  RETIRED  COLLEGE  PRESIDENT 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 
G.  STANLEY  HALL.  PH.D.,LL.D. 


/  look  for  the  New  Teacher  that  shall  . . .  show  that 

the  Ought,  that  Duty,  is  one  thing  with  Science, 

with  Beauty,  and  with  Joy. — EMERSON. 


RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 
BOSTON, 


Copyright  1913,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 
All  rights  reserved 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


TO 
CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT,  LL.  D. 

THE  LAYMAN  IN  RELIGION  AND  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

whose  election  to  the  presidency  of  Harvard  College  resulted 

in  the  creation  of  the  greatest  university 

in  the  New  World 


is 
DEDICATED 


INTRODUCTION 

The  author  of  these  essays,  many  years  ago  my 
student  and  friend,  a  man  of  culture,  personal  charm, 
and  with  special  training  in  philosophy,  lived  for  some 
time  hi  the  expectation  of  speedy  death.  In  this  con- 
dition he  sought  to  fortify  his  own  soul  by  formulating 
his  personal  convictions,  in  non-technical  terms,  con- 
cerning the  supreme  problems  of  human  life.  This  he 
was  able  to  do  with  a  candor  unalloyed  by  all  prudential 
considerations  as  to  how  utter  frankness,  so  often 
dangerous  to  men  hi  his  vocation,  would  affect  his  future 
career.  Since  his  partial  convalescence  he  has  decid- 
ed,—  upon  the  advice  and  wish  of  his  friends, — wisely 
and  well,  as  I,  and  I  believe  all  his  readers  will  think, 
to  make  public  these  meditations,  in  the  modest  hope 
that  they  will  interest  and  benefit  others  who  are  in- 
clined to  face  seriously  the  problems  of  life,  mind,  and 
destiny. 

In  the  first  essay  the  argument  succinctly  stated  is 
that  right  thinking  is  necessary  to  right  living,  and 
that,  as  the  ethical  idea  is  the  only  working  hypoth- 
esis for  the  right  conduct  of  life,  this  latter  must  be 
based  upon  a  consideration  of  all  the  facts  that  enter 
into  it.  The  next  world  must  not  dominate  this,  and 
there  must  be  no  "double  housekeeping. "  Perhaps  the 
writer  would  not  approve  the  slogan,  "One  world  at  a 
time,  gentlemen,  and  this  one  now;"  but  no  real  good 

v 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

here  must  be  sacrificed  or  even  imperiled  by  the  hy- 
pothesis of  immortality,  nor  must  specialization  or 
absorption  in  business  dwarf  the  sum-total  of  human 
nature  born  in  each  of  us.  Making  the  very  most  and 
best  of  this  life  and  this  world,  magnifying  the  here 
and  the  now,  doing  the  present  duty,  is  the  best  way  to 
attain  the  chief  end  of  man,  here  or  hereafter. 

In  the  second  essay  he  urges  that,  as  this  is  a  uni- 
verse, hi  which  every  atom  is  a  part  of  a  stupendous 
whole,  it  takes  everything  to  explain  anything,  ampli- 
fying the  moral  of  the  "flower  in  the  crannied  wall." 
The  least  event  not  only  has  innumerable  determinants, 
but  affects  the  whole,  which  alone  can  be  the  complete 
cause  of  the  tiniest  part  or  event.  The  ethical  implica- 
tion is  obvious.  Not  only  the  life  of  each  individual 
but  his  every  serious  deed  affects  in  some  degree  the 
world  itself.  Probably  the  author  would  not  say  with 
Rowland  Hazard  that  the  ego  is  a  creative  first  cause, 
but  rather  that  it  is  itself  a  plexus  of  links  in  an  endless 
chain,  as  much  caused  as  causing.  His  view,  at  any 
rate,  is  not  inaccordant  with  Spinoza's  idea  sub  specie 
etemitatis. 

In  the  next  essay  we  are  taught  that  moral  evil  is 
the  result  of  human  incapacity.  This  makes  man  sel- 
fish and  un-  and  anti-social.  Real  knowledge  ripened 
into  wisdom  is  the  only  cure  of  both  physical  and  moral 
ills,  and  a  sound  education  is  the  greatest  of  all  healers. 
In  this  chapter  the  author  anticipates  some  of  the  best 
precepts  and  practices  of  Du  Bois  and  Marcinowski, 
the  first  of  whom  uses  careful,  coherent  thinking  as  a 


INTRODUCTION  vn 

cure  for  subtle  brain,  and  even  nerve,  troubles,  and  the 
latter  of  whom  prescribes  philosophies  somewhat  as 
physicians  do  regimens. 

Lastly,  as  to  the  relations  between  happiness  and 
virtue,  we  are  taught  that  the  joys  of  sense  can  con- 
tribute very  little  to  happiness.  Egoism  is  good,  but 
only  so  far  as  it  is  intelligent.  The  power  to  enjoy 
grows  directly  as  does  capacity  for  sympathy.  Even 
non-moral  pleasures  may  be  made  means  to  moral 
enjoyment.  To  be  true  to  our  own  selves  brings  a  joy 
that  abides,  for  the  welfare  of  society  is  only  the  sum 
of  that  of  the  individuals  composing  it.  The  value  of 
a  sound  education  is  that  it  makes  for  virtue,  and  this 
is  the  author's  melioristic  creed.  The  greatest  happi- 
ness for  us  is  not  beyond  the  reach  of  our  power  to 
attain  it.  Love  is  the  highest,  and  it  teaches  us  the 
transcendent  beauty  of  the  universe. 

These  few  catch-phrases  may  inadequately  indicate 
the  general  trend,  though  they  by  no  means  do  justice 
to  the  attractive  personal  qualities,  the  happy  illustra- 
tions, or  the  utter  abandon  of  the  ingenuousness  of  the 
author.  There  is  no  flavor  of  the  study,  the  library,  or 
the  school-room  in  these  pages,  but  a  certain  distinct 
charm  of  style,  almost  as  if  in  despite  of  the  abandon, 
of  the  unabated  seriousness,  that  pervades  these  pages. 
It  is  this  that  contributes  to  their  optimism,  which  is 
the  prevalent  tone  throughout.  Their  perusal  will 
leave  the  reader,  as  it  has  left  .me,  sobered,  and  wond- 
ering whether,  if  I  were  thus  impelled  to  sum  up  my 
own  fundamental  convictions,  I  could  possibly,  despite 
my  more  years  of  life  and  teaching,  bring  forth  con- 


vii  INTRODUCTION 

elusions  so  sane  and  helpful,  even  now,  if  the  shadow 
of  the  Great  Reaper  fell  across  my  path  and  prompted 
me  to  summon  all  my  resources  in  the  way  of  philoso- 
phic contemplation.  Who  shall  say  that  the  writer 
does  not  owe  more  or  less  of  his  restoration  to  health 
to  the  mental  medicine  he  has  here  provided  and  offers 
to  others? 

G.  STANLEY  HALL 

CLARK  UNIVERSITY 
August,  1913 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

In  the  endeavor  to  illustrate  his  thought  fully  and 
to  forestall  possible  objections  by  the  utmost  fairness 
to  opinions  opposed  to  his  own,  the  author  has  made 
three  of  the  following  essays  so  long  that  he  has  deemed 
it  wise  in  the  case  of  these  three  to  add  a  marginal 
summary  of  the  argument;  but  in  the  shorter  essay  on 
Explanation  a  marginal  argument  seemed  unnecessary 
and  has  accordingly  been  omitted. 


CONTENTS 
INTRODUCTION  BY  G.  STANLEY  HALL. 


I 

A  REVEBY  WHEREIN  THE  FOLLOWING  ESSAYS  ARE 
CONCEIVED 9 

II 

PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE 13 

III 

THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION  AND  THE  TRUE 
INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  CAUSE 
AND  EFFECT 55 

IV 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 78 

V 

HAPPINESS  AND  MORALITY 117 


RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 


RELIGIO    DOCTORIS 

I 
A  REVERY 

WHEREIN  THE  FOLLOWING  ESSAYS  ARE  CONCEIVED 

IT  is  the  first  of  October, — perhaps  the  last  that  I 
shall  ever  see,  for  I  seem  to  grow  gradually  weaker  in- 
stead of  stronger, — a  beautiful,  soft  Indian  Summer 
day,  and  as  I  sit  in  a  little  pine  grove  that  commands  a 
wide  Thuringian  landscape,  full  of  peace  and  beauty 
(despite  the  fact  that  the  nearest  large  building  is  a 
great,  ugly  barracks),  the  perception  of  the  beauty  of 
the  world,  which  has  so  often  blessed  and  cheered  my 
life,  and  which  must  be,  in  large  part,  the  burden  of  any 
message  I  may  have  for  my  fellow  men,  comes  to  me 
with  renewed  freshness  and  strength. 

How  charming  it  all  is!  The  little  clump  of  ever- 
greens near  the  edge  of  which  I  sit  with  my  back  against 
a  trunk,  so  that  my  head  is  shielded  from  the  sun,  which 
still  shines  all  about  me  and  increases  the  balsamic  fra- 
grance which  makes  a  pine  wood  so  delightful,  is  not 
quite  on  the  crest  of  the  upland  from  which  my  view  is 
obtained;  and  not  far  away  is  a  grove  of  chestnuts  sur- 
rounded on  every  side  by  cleared  fields,  some  lying  fal- 
low, while  on  others  the  ungarnered  crops  still  stand. 
This  grove  is  not  large,  but  the  trees  are  strong,  healthy 
and  graceful,  and  in  their  autumn  dress  of  ruddy  brown 

9 


10  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

and  bronze  and  yellow  and  still  with  many  a  splatch  of 
green,  both  light  and  dark,  the  whole  stands  out  most 
pleasingly  against  the  soft  blue  sky.  There  is  just  a 
suggestion  of  haze  on  the  horizon,  but  the  sky  is  almost 
cloudless  and  there  is  only  enough  motion  in  the  air  to 
keep  it  fresh  and  balmy  and  to  prevent  the  softness  of 
the  day  from  degenerating  into  sultriness.  Over  the 
crest  of  the  upland  peep  the  tops  of  some  houses  and  the 
trees  about  them,  giving  a  hint  of  peaceful  home  life 
near  at  hand,  that  adds  to  the  charm  of  the  scene.  In 
every  other  direction  the  slopes  and  plains  and  valleys 
of  Thuringia  spread  out  for  miles  before  me;  not  far 
away  is  a  little  city,  and  beyond  it  the  landscape,  more 
largely  cleared  than  wooded,  is  dotted  with  many  quiet 
little  villages. 

Yes!  the  world  is  full  of  beauty;  and  beautiful  as  is 
the  actual  world  as  we  know  it,  sweet  as  life  is  to  us 
with  all  its  sorrow  and  misery,  there  is  far  more  of 
potential  beauty  in  life  than  we  have  yet  realized. 
Why  is  it,  then,  that  there  is  so  much  unhappiness  in 
life?  Can  human  effort  do  nothing  for  the  cure  of 
human  wretchedness?  And  if  human  effort  can  do 
anything,  what  kind  of  effort?  Shall  we  accomplish 
our  purpose  by  building  railroads  and  steamships  and 
thus  extending  the  field  of  civilization?  Shall  we  do  it 
by  studying  mathematics  and  physics  and  chemistry 
and  biology,  or  perhaps  by  teaching  history  and  litera- 
ture? Shall  we  do  it  by  building  churches  or  schools 
or  by  carving  statues,  painting  pictures  or  composing 
symphonies?  Shall  we  do  it  by  loving?  I,  now,  what 
can  I  do? 


A  REVERY  11 

Has  not  this  question,  have  not  these  questions  dis- 
turbed the  hearts  of  all  of  us  at  times?  Why  do  I  sit 
idly  by  while  my  brothers  suffer,  although  I  have  the 
prospect  of  months  of  life  and  ability  to  work  before  me? 
Is  it  really  because  I  feel  that  nothing  that  £an  be  done 
is  worth  while?  No,  it  is  not  that;  I  have  the  belief, 
more  or  less  common  among  civilized  men,  that  all  such 
things  as  I  have  mentioned — the  railroad  building,  the 
picture  painting,  the  chemistry  and  the  religious  or- 
ganizations— may  help  to  make  the  world  a  better 
dwelling  place  for  man.  Is  it,  then,  that  I  feel  that  all 
is  being  done  that  can  be  done,  and  that  there  is  nothing 
I  can  do  for  my  fellow  men,  now  that  I  am  not  actively 
engaged  in  my  profession?  Not  quite;  perhaps  all 
thoughtful  and  loving  men  have  their  moments  of 
exaltation,  when  they  feel  that  they  see  some  aspect  of 
life  more  clearly  than  their  fellows,  and  that  it  would  be 
well  if  all  the  world  could  share  their  insight.  Why, 
then,  thou  dubious  friend  of  man,  hast  thou  not  shouted 
thy  wisdom  from  the  housetop?  why  have  not  thy 
brothers,  in  their  moments  of  exaltation,  cried  their 
messages  aloud  for  all  men  to  hear? 

Probably  one  thing  that  keeps  those  of  us  silent  who 
have  not  made  literature  a  profession,  is  that  "before 
we  find  the  opportunity  to  express  ourselves  we  are 
likely  to  have  passed  the  age  of  thirty-five  and  to  have 
recovered  some  of  the  pristine  modesty  of  childhood, 
and  we  remember  those  fatal  words,  "There  is  nothing 
new  under  the  sun!"  And,  further  than  this,  I  dis- 
trust preaching;  I  have  long  felt  that  if  a  man  believes 
himself  to  be  possessed  of  some  truth  which  he  would 


12  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

like  to  impart  to  his  fellows,  he  should  live  it  rather  than 
preach  it.  Example  is  so  much  better  than  precept; 
preaching  is  so  cheap ! 

Yet  preaching  has  its  place.  We  may  well  grant 
that  he  who  preaches  without  at  the  same  time  doing 
his  best  to  live  in  accordance  with  his  own  preaching 
deserves  little  consideration,  and  yet  also  admit  that 
he  who  cannot  himself  climb  far  may  nevertheless  point 
the  way  up  the  mountain  side.  And  if  my  death  be  real- 
ly near,as  has  lately  seemed  not  improbable,perhaps  I  am 
justified  in  trying  to  utter  the  truth  that  is  in  me,  even 
though  I  only  say  imperfectly  what  may  be  gathered 
from  the  different  utterances  of  those  who  have  already 
spoken;  perhaps  under  the  circumstances  it  is  right  for 
me  to  try  to  express  the  fundamental  convictions  that 
have  made  my  life  a  predominantly  happy  one  (albeit 
a  life  in  which  the  struggle  for  self-support  and  for  the 
knowledge  that  should  be  helpful  toward  the  solution 
of  the  problems  of  existence,has  been  carried  on  through- 
out under  physical  weakness,  and  with  no  dear  ones  of 
my  own  about  me  to  brighten  life  by  the  sweet  joy  of 
home — a  joy  which,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  per- 
haps those  alone  fully  appreciate  who  have  it  not),  and 
which  leave  me  now  serene  and  happy  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  death, — a  premature  death,  before  the  age  of 
forty, — although  I  am  wholly  without  faith  in  the  be- 
lief that  seems  so  dear  to  many  of  my  fellows,  the 
belief  in  individual  personal  immortality  and  in  the 
existence  of  an  Almighty  Personal  Creator  and  Ruler  of 
the  Universe,  who  loves  us  as  his  children. 


n 

PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE 

As  a  man  thinketh,  so  is  he 

PROVERB 

ANTITHESIS  is  the  bane  of  sound  thinking,  I  some- 
times think,  and  therefore  of  simple,  natural,  wholesome, 
contrast  and  unaffected,  large-hearted  living.  We  are 
inordinately  fond  of  contrast  in  every 
department  of  life.  In  the  realm  of  myth  our  fore- 
fathers had  their  good  and  evil  spirits,  and  we  must 
have  our  God  and  our  Devil;  and  even  in  the  ethical 
and  religious  thought  of  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth 
centuries  the  traditional  division  of  mankind  into  sheep 
and  goats,  into  saints  and  sinners,  dies  hard,  although 
fortunately  for  the  sanity  of  our  thought,  it  may  indeed 
to  be  said  to  be  dying.  The  subject  is  an  interesting 
one,  and  were  unlimited  time  at  our  disposal  hundreds 
of  illustrations  could  be  given  of  the  tendency  to  sepa- 
rate that  with  which  life  and  thought  must  deal  into 
hard  and  fast  divisions  which  do  not  correspond  to 
reality. 

That  at  the  bottom  of  this  erroneous,  this  exaggera- 
tive tendency  of  mankind  there  is  something  reasonable, 
I  do  not  for  a  moment  question;  for  I  am  convinced 
that  no  error  would  live  for  a  day  if  it  did  not 
contain  an  element  of  truth.  For  the  purposes  of 

13 


14  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

science  as  well  as  for  the  purposes  of  practical,  every- 
day life,  we  must  of  course  discriminate.     The  stage  of 
division  and  classification  is  surely  one  of 

Its  justification 

found  in  its       the  most   important    stages    of    scientific 

purpose— re-  f    •      ..i  t 

combination       progress  i  and,  in  the  realm  of  everyday 

into  a  larger,        «~    °  * 

more  perfect      life,  if  the  wide-awake  farmer  would  know 

whole.  ii-t 

what  crop  or  crops  he  can  cultivate  to  the 
best  advantage,  and  what  are  the  most  favorable  condi- 
tions for  the  cultivation  of  the  most  suitable  variety  of 
the  chosen  grain  or  vegetable  or  fruit,  he  must  at  the 
outset  be  able  to  distinguish  clearly  between  the  differ- 
ent kinds,  he  must  separate  the  varieties  of  grain,  for 
instance,  plant  them  by  themselves,  and  carefully  ob- 
serve their  respective  growths.  But  important  as  are 
distinctions,  contrasts  and  divisions  for  the  various 
purposes  of  practical  life  and  for  the  preliminary  stages 
of  science,  we  should  not  forget  that  their  significance 
is  limited.  For  the  gourmand  edible  mushrooms  be- 
long in  a  class  which  also  includes  deer,  chicken,  fish, 
oysters,  wheat,  peaches,  radishes,  and,  if  he  be  a  Chinese, 
bird's  nests;  while  a  toadstool,  an  iron  nail,  a  diamond, 
a  pair  of  boots,  a  yacht,  a  granite  boulder,  a  copper 
penny,  a  rattlesnake  and  a  clod  of  earth  are  all  members 
of  another,  contrasted  class  of  non-edibles.  For  him 
the  division  of  things  into  these  two  classes  is  of  the 
utmost  importance,  and  the  distinction  between  edible 
mushrooms  and  toadstools  is,  to  say  the  least,  funda- 
mental. But  for  the  botanist  this  distinction  is  a  very 
slight  one;  for  him  these  two  things  belong  to  the  same 
general  class.  For  the  merchant,  again,  a  still  different 
classification  of  the  tilings  mentioned  above  would  have 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      15 

to  be  made,  a  classification  that  would  as  little  resemble 
that  of  the  gourmand  as  it  would  that  of  the  botanist. 
We  should  bear  in  mind,  however,  not  alone  that  the 
classification  of,  and  the  distinctions  between,  the 
things  we  deal  with  in  science  and  in  life  have  merely  a 
relative,  not  a  permanent  and  essential  value,  but  also 
that  just  as  in  practical  life  we  distinguish  and  separate 
in  order  that  the  things  thus  set  apart  may  be  put 
with  other  things  into  some  new  combination  which  has 
for  the  immediate  purpose  of  the  worker  a  practical 
value,  so  too  in  science,  distinctions,  divisions  and 
separations  are  not  final ;  we  separate  in  thought  for  the 
purposes  of  study,  in  order  that  we  may  recombine  all 
of  which  the  human  mind  is  cognizant  into  a  more  orderly, 
more  perfect  whole.  To  regard  the  various  classes  of 
objects  and  ideas  with  which  we  have  to  do  in  our 
thinking  and  living,  as  absolutely  separate,  unrelated 
things,  to  lock  them  up  forever  in  separate,  watertight 
compartments,  between  which  there  is  no  means  of 
communication,  is,  in  the  larger  meaning  of  science, 
highly  unscientific,  and  it  leads  to  deplorable  narrow- 
ness in  practical  life. 

This  tendency  to  regard  things  as  finally  disposed  of 
when  we  have  given  them  a  name  and  put  them  into 
separate  classes, — which  tendency  may  perhaps  be  re- 
garded as  an  indication  of  arrested  development  in 
scientific  thought, — has  fostered  a  high  degree  of 
satisfaction  in  the  most  positive  antitheses;  a  disposi- 
tion that  has  found  theoretical  expression  in  the  widely 
accepted  philosophy  of  Kant,  and  that  also  showed 
itself  in  the  manner  in  which  the  psychologists  of  the 


16  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

last  generation  talked  of  the  feelings,  the  intellect  and 

the  will  as  entirely  distinct  entities,  instead  of  different 

.  phases,    different    aspects  of  the  life,  the 

ine  purpose         * 

lost  sigtt  of      activity,  of  the  one  being,  man.     But  the 

when  the  pro-  « 

cess  stops  with    vagaries  of  the  scholar  hurt  the  world  very 

the  positing  of        ~=  t  f 

distinctions  be-  little  as  compared  with  the  harm  that  is 

tween  things,  *  . 

the  conceptions  done  when  a  hke  false  attitude  toward  real- 

of  which  are       .  . 

then  developed,  ity  is  taken  by  men  in  everyday  life,  when 

in  isolation,  /  J  ,      ,.,  . 

until  they  have  the  average  man   reads  life  amiss.     And 

become  incon-  i        i  i  »    •          -n     i    • 

sistent  with  one  that  he  has  done  and  is  still  doing  this, 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  We  must  of  course 
read  the  world  somewhat  amiss,  so  long  as  we  see  it 
only  in  part,  not  as  a  perfect  whole.  Every  thought- 
ful man  must  realize  how  impossible  it  is  that  he  or  his 
fellows  should  be  free  from  error  in  the  present  stage  of 
human  development,  to  say  the  least.  But  it  does 
not  follow  that  we  need  be  quite  so  wrong-headed 
as  we  are;  we  should  not  be  so  if  we  would  keep 
in  mind  the  knowledge  we  already  have,  if  we 
would  make  a  more  earnest  effort  to  unify  our 
knowledge,  to  make  of  it  a  consistent  whole  instead  of 
a  collection  of  facts,  or  groups  of  facts  (and  theories), 
entirely  isolated  from  one  another.  Let  us  remember 
that  so  able  and  lovable  a  man  as  the  late  Professor 
Henry  Drummond  only  became  a  real  leader  of  men, 
a  true  apostle,  a  man  with  a  message,  when  he  awoke 
to  the  fact,  as  he  himself  expressed  it  in  his  introduction 
to  "Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World,"  that  his 
conceptions  of  religion  and  of  science  ought  not  to  be 
kept  absolutely  separate  in  water-tight  compartments 
of  his  brain, — when  he  realized  that,  if  his  religious  and 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      17 

his  scientific  ideas  were  both  true,  they  must  have  some 

relation  to  each  other,  they  must  at  least  be  consistent. 

Most  of  us  are  content  to  go  through  life  holding 

absolutely  contradictory  ideas, — as  that  no  gentleman 

will  permit  another  to  insult  him  without 

Many  have        resenting  the  insult,  even  though  to  do  so 

come  to  con-  °  i     •     • 

sider  that  par-    cost  him  his  life;  that  a  Christian  must 

adox  and  anfa-  .  .    .  ,~     .     . 

nomies  are  nor-  forgive  every  injury;  and  that  a  Christian 

mal,  that  one  ,1-1 

truth  may  be     gentleman  offers  us  the  highest  type  of 

contradictory  of   B  . 

another.— a  no-  life,  an  ideal  toward  which  we  should  all 

tion  that,  de-  . 

liberateiy  ac-     strive.     Of  course  to  dull,  prosaic,  matter- 

cepted  and  con-  . 

sistentiy  foi-     of-fact  people,  who  do  not  know  any  better 

lowed   out,  ,  f*  i  •       -i     -  i 

would  dissipate  than  to  have  confidence  in  their  own  mental 

our  universe  .  .  ,  . 

into  chaos.  processes*  it  must  seem  either  that  one  can- 
not be  at  once  a  gentleman  and  a  Christian, 
or  else  that  the  conception  of  gentleman  or  that  of 
Christian  above  adopted  must  be  at  fault.  But  why  has 
this  not  occurred  to  any  of  the  enthusiastic  Christian 
gentlemen  who  have  held  these  theories  during  the  last 
thousand  years  or  so,  and  who  still  hold  them?  For 
two  reasons,  I  believe.  Chiefly  because  they  have 
very  rarely  put  their  theses  side  by  side,  as  I  have  done 
above;  but  instead,  to  use  Professor  Dnimmond's  ex- 
pression again,  have  kept  them  in  different  water-tight 
compartments  of  their  brains.  In  one  field  of  thought, 
having  its  own  associations,  arises  the  conception  of  the 
scrupulous  man  of  honor,  who  must  be  ever  ready  to 
give  his  life  to  keep  his  honor  absolutely  untarnished — 
a  fantastic  notion,  if  you  will,  often  associated  with 
much  that  is  absurd,  but  still  noble,  in  that  it  teaches 
men  to  prefer  an  ideal  good  to  the  mere  continuance  of 


18  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

physical  existence,  puts  self-respect  before  length  of 
life,  and  has  helped  to  keep  alive  in  man's  breast  his 
most  heroic  attribute,  courage,  the  feeling  which  assures 
him  that  death  with  honor  is  far  more  to  be  desired 
than  the  longest  life  if  one  must  demean  himself  to 
enjoy  it.  In  another  field  of  thought,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  an  entirely  different  set  of  associations, 
arises  the  conception  of  Christian  humility,  self-sacri- 
fice, and  Christ-like  forgiveness — again  a  beautiful 
thought,  hi  so  far  as  it  leads  a  man  to  put  love  for  God 
and  his  brother  men  before  his  individual  enjoyment 
of  the  good  things  of  physical  existence.  When  we 
analyze  these  two  conceptions — that  of  the  Christian 
and  that  of  the  gentleman — carefully,  we  find  that 
there  is  something  in  common  between  them — the  pre- 
ference of  ideal  to  material  good, — and  it  is  not  very 
surprising  that  they  should  both  be  held  by  the  same 
man  so  long  as  he  does  not  put  them  directly  side  by 
side.  But  occasionally  these  two  doctrines  of  forgive- 
ness and  revenge  are  brought  face  to  face,  and  still 
their  votaries  profess  allegiance  to  both!  How  is  this 
possible?  Is  it  not  because  our  teachers,  our  acknowl- 
edged intellectual  leaders,  have  encouraged  us  to  con- 
sider it  not  only  tolerable,  but  rather  a  fine  thing,  to 
maintain  paradoxes  and  antinomies, — which  they  have 
sought  to  justify  by  large  assertions  and  vague  assump- 
tions as  to  the  utter  separateness  of  different  "worlds 
of  thought"? 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      19 

Thus  it  happens  that  today,  after  all  the  world's 

great  prophets  and  scientists  have  offered  us  their  gifts, 

we  are  in  some  respects  farther  from  the 

The  effort  to 

unify  our  con-    truth  than  in  the  day  when  Zarathustra 

ceptions  con-  " 

teamed  as  un-    or  Socrates  or  Jesus  first  walked  the  earth. 

scientific  specu-  . 

lation,  unfavor-  Because  today  we  will  not  see  life  whole. 

ably  contrasted  *  . 

with  the  study    Our  educated  classes  have  a  pseudo-scien- 

of  details,  to  .  . 

which  study       tific  contempt  for  anything  that  is  general 

the  term  *.          .  °  . 

science  is  ap-  and  comprehensive  and  for  anyone  who, 
forgetfuiness  like  Bacon,  would  take  all  knowledge  for 
that  nothing  his  province.  This  is  a  very  natural  result 

can  be  rightly        ,    .  .  ,  ,  j      •      .  i_ 

apprehended  of  the  rapid  progress  we  have  made  in  the 
r£iations™and  details  of  science,  hi  gathering  material  for 

therefore  that     ,  i  i     i  *  .• 

no  department    human  knowledge.     As  a  generation  we 

of  science  can  •      .  i  •  t 

be  safely  and  are  ui  that  most  trying  stage  of  progress  in 
vated*  without"  knowledge,  when,  having  gathered  together 

continued  refer-  t  t  j        •    • 

ence  to  and  fre-  an  enormous  mass  of  facts  and  opinions,  we 
son^ith°thFngs  are  in  danger  of  being  swamped  by  our  ma- 
terial, and  like  Thoreau's  unfortunate  who 
was  owned  by  his  farm,  who  with  the  title  to  the  ances- 
tral acres  had  inherited  a  clog  upon  all  independent  mo- 
tion and  freedom  of  action,  we  are  not  master  of,  but  are 
mastered  by  our  knowledge.  We  endeavor  to  .conceal 
our  embarrassment  from  ourselves  by  the  favorite 
resort  of  the  pseudo,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  fairer  to  say 
the  smt-scientist — definition;  by  a  parade  of  sounding 
terms,  by  pointing  to  an  imposing  array  of  elaborately 
defined  and  delimited  fields  of  human  investigation  and 
activity.  We  speak  fluently  of  science  and  of  com- 
merce, of  art  and  of  nature,  of  the  field  of  philosophy 
and  the  field  of  industrial  activity;  and  within  these 


20  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

several  fields  we  accord  honorable  recognition  to  scores 
of  lesser  fields,  the  field  of  literature,  of  music,  of  paint- 
ing, of  sculpture,  the  field  of  chemistry,  of  geology,  of 
botany,  the  field  of  political  economy  and  that  of  ethnol- 
ogy, etc.  Sometimes,  indeed,  we  mention  life,  either 
as  the  subject-matter  of  the  special  science  of  biology 
or  for  the  sake  of  rhetorical  contrast,  as  when  we  speak 
of  life  and  art  or  of  philosophy  and  life.  But  in  so 
doing,  as  in  our  unfortunate  antitheses  between  man 
and  nature  or  nature  and  spirit  or  nature 

The  unity  of  aU  .  r. 

science,  art  and  and  history,  we  only  emphasize  our  failure 

philosophy,  as 

the  knowledge,   to  realize  the  truth  that  all  of  art  and 

expression  and        .  ..  ,  .       . 

interpretation  science  and  philosophy  are  but  the  inter- 
pretation of  Life, — that  wonderful  physical, 
emotional,  mental  and  spiritual  sentiency  and  activity 
of  man,  through  which  he  finds  a  world  within  and 
about  him  to  which  he  must  adjust  his  activity,  and  in 
which  his  existence  is  rich  and  happy  or  starved  and 
wretched  in  proportion  as  he  does  adjust  himself  well 
or  ill  thereto;  for  the  purpose  of  which  adjustment  he 
must  understand,  or  interpret  to  himself  aright,  this 
world  with  which  his  life  has  to  do!  Hence  the  signi- 
ficance of  art,  of  science,  and  of  philosophy.  In  and 
of  themselves  they  not  only  have  no  value,  they  have 
no  existence,  they  are  but  empty  terms,  hollow  sounds. 
And  yet  we  prate  of  "art  for  art's  sake. "  It  is  rank 
nonsense,  yet  men  of  talent  and  of  such  education  as  the 
isolation  of  unphilosophical  attitude  of  our  age  has 
made  possible  gravely  discuss,  not  whether 
ait  for  art's  sake  exists,  but  whether  it  is  good!  But 
what  is  art?  Can  it  exist  without  a  content?  Is  it 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      21 

not  such  an  expression  of  something  that  the  artist 
has  himself  thought  or  felt  as  shall  suggest  to  others  a 
corresponding  feeling  or  idea?  And  does  not  this 
mean  that  it  is  an  expression  of  an  experience  of  life, 
which  shall  affect  the  lives  of  others;  and  therefore 
that  it  has,  must  have,  a  value  for  life?  To  express 
something  is  the  life  of  art;  that  which,  expressing 
nothing,  exists  for  itself  alone,  is  not  art. 

If  we  turn  to  what  is  called  science,  we  find  that  the 

attitude  of  many  of  those  who  are  regarded  as  educated 

is  just  as  bad.     Anecdotes  are  continually 

indifference  of    being  told  of  distinguished  votaries' of  some 

pure  science  to  .         ,       , 

practical  utility,  particular  branch  of  science,  setting  forth 
their  disposition  to  attribute  scientific 
value  to  a  truth  hi  direct  proportion  to  its  practical 
uselessness.  Of  course  there  is  some  real  significance, 
some  glimmer  of  reason  at  the  bottom  of  this  nonsense, 
as  there  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  error.  But  what  is  it? 
In  a  German  market  town  I  have  sometimes  seen  a 
blindfolded  cow  quietly  hauling  a  load  of  produce 
through  a  busy  street.  The  simple-minded  beast, 
accustomed  to  a  quiet  country  life,  could  not  well  en- 
dure the  distractions  of  a  thoroughfare,  and  so  performed 
its  immediate  duty  best  when  it  did  not  know  where  it  was 
going  or  what  was  its  relation  to  what  was  going  on 
about  it.  Now  the  man  of  science  when  he  has  once  got- 
ten upon  the  track  of  some  uniformity  in  nature,  or  even 
of  some  mere  fact,  follows  it  out  patiently,  regardless  of 
whether  it  have  any  immediate  economic  value.  For 
the  accomplishment  of  his  immediate  purpose  it  may 
be  better  that  he  should  not  be  distracted  by  considera- 


22  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

tions  of  the  practical  end  of  his  activity.  And  so  he 
is  justified  in  putting  on  blinders,  or  in  other  words,  in 
saying  to  the  world:  "Do  not  bother  me  with  your 
demand  for  practical  results.  I  am  not  in  the  least  con- 
cerned as  to  whether  you  can  make  the  slightest  eco- 
nomic use  of  the  knowledge  I  am  trying  to  get  and  with 
which  I  busy  myself.  My  business  is  not  to  ascertain 
what  is  useful,  but  what  is  true.  The  great  practical 
discoveries  and  inventions  about  which  you  make  such 
a  to-do,  have  perhaps  as  much  scientific  value  as  the 
isolated  facts  with  which  men  of  my  calling  busy  them- 
selves, but  they  do  not  compare  in  the  least  in  scienti- 
fic value  with  the  generalizations,  the  uniformities  in 
nature,  the  so-called  laws  of  nature,  which  my  fellow- 
workers  have  from  time  to  time  suggested  and  estab- 
lished, and  which  I  am  endeavoring  to  establish,  even 
though  these  laws  of  nature  be  in  regard  to  something 
for  which  neither  you  nor  I  can  perceive  the  slightest 
economic  value.  Go  back  to  your  machine  shop  and 
attend  to  your  business,  and  leave  me  in  peace  to 
attend  to  mine!"  Such  an  attitude  on  the  part  of  the 
man  of  science  is  reasonable  and  right  enough  in  fact, 
but  it  would  not  be  so  if  the  words  we  have  supposed 
him  to  utter  were  the  last  words  that  could  be  said 
upon  the  subject,  if  they  expressed  all  the  justification 
there  was  for  his  position.  Back  of  his  assertion  that 
his  business  is  not  to  ascertain  what  is  useful,  but  what 
is  true,  what  is,  lies  the  moral  certainty  that  all  knowl- 
edge is  useful;  that  the  more  facts  we  have  mastered, 
the  greater  the  possibility  of  our  discovering  the 
habits  of  the  Universe;  and  that  the  more  perfectly 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      23 

we  understand  the  Universe  the  better  shall  we  be  able 
to  adjust  ourselves  to  it,  the  more  complete,  the  richer 
and  happier  our  lives  will  be.  A  fact  I  discover  today 
may  have  no  apparent  use  for  you  or  for  me  today  or  a 
decade  hence;  but  it  may  be  that  a  thousand  years 
hence,  to  some  patient  worker  in  a  seemingly  quite 
different  field  of  science,  it  will  prove  to  be  of  service, 
perhaps  of  slight  service,  perhaps  of  great.  In  a  word, 
sooner  or  later,  here  or  elsewhere,  to  me  or  to  some  one 
else,  every  item  of  knowledge  has  the  possibility  of 
value,  a  practical  value,  a  value  for  life.  And  that, 
not  "knowledge  for  the  sake  of  knowledge"  (really  a 
meaningless  phrase),  is  the  justification  for  pure  scien- 
tific activity  regardless  of  immediate  value.  Let  us 
remember  that  the  scientist  who  prides  himself  upon 
the  fact  that  his  scientific  activity  has  no  value  for 
anything  outside  of  itself  or  for  anybody  but  the  scien- 
tist, and  that  it  exists  for  its  own  sake  alone,  and  is 
valuable  only  as  science — let  us  remember  that  such  a 
scientist  is  after  all  only  priding  himself  upon  the  fact 
that  he  does  his  work  better  in  blinders  than  with  a 
full  view  of  the  world  in  which  he  moves;  and  if  it 
really  be  true  that  he  is  regardless  of  anything  outside 
his  special  field,  and  does  not  care  whether  his  activity 
has  or  shall  ever  have  the  slightest  extrinsic  worth, 
valuing  it  only  as  an  intellectual  exercise,  then  he  is  as 
narrow-minded,  as  much  below  the  full  stature  of  man, 
the  heir  of  the  ages,  and  the  hereditary  interpreter  of 
nature — as  much  below  the  full  stature  of  man,  with 
his  boundless  interests,  as  that  shopkeeper  who  allowed 
his  business  to  so  engross  his  life  that  it  was  said  of  him 
that  he  was  born  a  man  and  died  a  grocer  I 


24  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

Current  conception  as  to  the  significance  of  philoso- 
phy are  as  artificial,  as  unintelligent,  as  false  and 
Philosophy  inadequate,  as  are  those  in  regard  to  art 
and  science.  We  hear  such  phrases  as 
"philosophy  versus  life,"  as  though  there  were  any 
philosophy  other  than  the  attempt  to  interpret  life 
and  its  theatre  the  world;  or  as  though  life  without 
philosophy  were  fit  for,  nay,  were  possible  for  any  being 
but  a  brute  or  a  vegetable.  It  is  true  that  the  simple- 
minded  man  of  every-day  life,  a  day-laborer  in  Europe 
or  America  or  a  savage  in  the  South  Sea  Islands,  may 
not  dignify  his  theory  of  life  by  the  name  of  philosophy, 
and  he  may  have  taken  it  whole  from  his  father  or  his 
priest,  but,  simple  or  elaborate,  complete  or  incomplete, 
consistent  or  inconsistent,  clearly  or  all  but  unconscious- 
ly held,  every  man  not  an  idiot  has,  must  have  some 
sort  of  philosophy  of  life,  be  it  ever  so  vague  and  hazy. 

Art,  science,  philosophy  alike  exist  only  for  the 
interpretation  and  enlargement  of  life;  and  it  seems 
to  me  that  our  most  crying  need  today  is,  I  will  not  say 
a  true  philosophy  of  life,  but,  let  me  rather  say,  the 
perception  that  such  a  philosophy  is  a  fundamental 
desideratum. 

We  are  prevented  from  realizing  this  by  causes  that 
have  already  been  suggested.  The  tendency  of  the 
Philosophy  re-  age  toward  specialization  has  led  us  to 
t^ns^tndentai  l°°k  upon  philosophy  as  a  special  depart- 
aputfrom  real  nient  of  human  investigation  with  which 
tuai  gymnastic'  no  one  but  tne  philosophic  specialist  has 
for  the  few.  anv  concern.  By  the  almost  unanimous 

consent   of   the   philosophic   specialists   and  the   rest 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      25 

of  mankind  PHILOSOPHY  is  regarded  as  some- 
thing very  abstruse  and  difficult;  and  by  the  great 
majority  of  mankind,  including  not  only  most  of 
the  outer  barbarians  who  have  not  devoted  them- 
selves to  its  study,  but  also  no  inconsiderable  number 
of  those  who  have  formally  pursued  it,  philosophy 
is  furthermore  regarded  as  something  quite  useless 
and  often  as  something  highly  fantastic.  Many  who 
pass  for  educated  men  shrug  their  shoulders  at  the  mere 
mention  of  philosophy,  saying  that  they  would  not 
advise  anyone  who  had  not  a  special  predilection  for 
cobweb-spinning  and  hair-splitting  to  waste  his  time 
upon  it,  when  there  is  so  much  to  be  done  in  the  field  of 
practical  effort  and  demonstrative  science.  This  is 
hardly  to  be  wondered  at  when  we  consider  how  largely 
philosophy  has  been  identified  with  metaphysics,  and 
that  the  so-called  philosophers,  with  the  characteristic 
abandon  of  the  specialist,  cutting  themselves  loose  from 
the  manifold  interests  of  a  broad,  symmetrical,  practical 
life,  which  would  have  kept  them  sane,  have  so  often 
launched  out  into  all  sorts  of  fantastic  theories  having 
no  relation  to  practical  life. 

But  what  is  philosophy?     Various  definitions  have 
been  offered  at  different  times  and  in  different  places, 
yet  I  believe  that  a  consensus  of  the  com- 
Phiiosophy  is     petent  would  now  recognize  the  substantial 
concept1onntof     correctness  of  the  conception  that  philoso- 
phy is  the  theory,  not  of  this  or  that  de- 
partment of  human  thought,  but  the  theory 
of  the  Universe  as  a  whole,  and  that  the  aim  of  philoso- 
phy is  a  consistent  conception  of  all  that  is.     The  essen- 


26  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

tial  thing  in  a  philosophy  is  not  that  it  shall  give  a 
complete  explanation  of  all  that  is  (that  would  be 
universal  science),  but  that  it  shall  so  take  account  of 
all  that  is  that  one's  conception  of  the  different  elements 
of  human  experience  which  constitute  our  universe  shall 
be  mutually  consistent  with  one  another.  If  one's 
conception  of  A  and  B  and  C  and  D,  of  chemistry  and 
spirit  and  ether  and  space  and  matter  and  the  principle 
of  causality  and  geology  and  the  development  of  the 
human  mind  and  economics  and  religion  and  art,  are 
mutually  consistent,  or,  let  us  say,  are  not  inconsistent 
with  one  another,  then  may  his  philosophy  be  sound  and 
true,  even  though  he  be  very  far  indeed  from  having  at- 
tained to  a  full  explanation  of  the  relation  of  these  various 
objects  of  contemplation  to  one  another.  No  one,  in 
the  present  stage  of  human  knowledge,  can  reasonably 
demand  that  our  philosophy  shall  afford  a  complete 
explanation  of  all  that  is ;  but  while  it  need  not  be  com- 
plete, it  must  be  consistent,  the  world  may  well  demand 
of  us  that  our  philosophy  shall  consist  of  such  a  con- 
ception of  life  and  the  universe  as  shall  contain  no 
contradictions,  and  also  that  it  shall  not  attain  a  seem- 
ing consistency  by  ignoring  any  part  of  reality.  Phil- 
osophy is  not  abstruse  theory;  it  means  simply  a  reason- 
able conception  of  that  which  is.  It  is  the  recognition 
that  truth  is  one,  and  that  no  individual  truth  in  the 
universe  can  be  inconsistent  with  any  other  truth.  As 
such  it  is  the  touchstone  of  science,  and  tells  us  that  if 
that  which  we  have  come  to  look  upon  as  a  truth,  or  law, 
of  chemical  science  is  really  contradictory  of  or  incon- 
sistent with  that  which  we  have  regarded  as  a  truth  of 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      27 

mathematics  or  of  history  or  of  religion,  then  we  must 
renew  our  investigations  and  reformulate  our  theories, 
for  one  or  both  of  the  supposed  truths  must  be,  in  part 
at  least,  false.  Both  of  the  supposed  truths  may  indeed 
approximate  the  truth;  one  may  be  exactly  true  and 
the  other  may  lack  little  of  precise  truth;  but  in  so  far 
as  they  do  contradict  one  another,  in  so  far,  we  may  be 
sure,  the  attempted  formulation  of  one  or  of  both 
truths  is,  as  it  then  stands,  at  fault.  Let  us  hold  fast 
to  this  axiom  of  common  sense,  which  is  fundamental 
to  reason  and  therefore  to  philosophy!  To  disregard, 
or  to  juggle  with,  this  self-evident  truth,  is  to  make 
sane  thought  and  sound  philosophy  impossible,  for  it 
is  to  foreswear  reason,  and,  instead  of  a  universe,  to 
accept  chaos. 

If  philosophy  be  thus  understood,  I  think  it  will  not 

be  questioned  that  each  one  of  us  may  and  should  strive 

for  a  true  philosophy  of  life,  a  consistent 

Philosophy  a      conception  of  all  that  is,  a  conception  of 

demand  of  ,.  .        . 

human  nature,  reality  as  constituting  a  universe,  not  a 
chaos.  We  not  only  may  and  should;  as 
I  have  already  intimated,  we  must;  all  sane  minds  that 
have  not  been  grossly  misled  by  those  to  whom  they  have 
felt  justified  in  looking  for  guidance,  do,  more  or  less 
consciously,  reach  after  a  consistent  theory  of  that 
which  is,  or,  in  other  word^,  a  philosophy  of  life.  If 
there  is  any  sense  in  which  the  will  is  free,  if  volition 
plays  any  part  in  life,  then  we  must  strive  to  under- 
stand the  universe  of  which  we  are  a  part,  to  get  a  con- 
spectus of  it,  a  consistent  view  of  it  as  a  whole,  so  that 
we  may  know  how  to  direct  our  life  in  it.  But  un- 


28  REUGIO  DOCTORIS 

fortunately  those  to  whom,  on  account  of  their  position, 
their  learning,  their  mental  training  and  their  spiritual 
experience,  the  mass  of  mankind  have  felt  that  they 
could  safely  look  for  guidance,  have  so  often  been 
false  guides,  blind  leaders  of  the  blind,  that  that  which 
serves  as  a  philosophy  of  life  for  most  of  us  today  is 
pitifully  weak,  a  thing  of  shreds  and  tatters,  very  often 
indeed  allowing  us,  almost  compelling  us,  to  assert 
gravely  the  most  contradictory  things. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  at  this  time  to  set  forth  and 
defend  a  particular  philosophy  of  life.     My  purpose  is 
merely  (1)  to  direct  attention  to  our  care- 
Faulty  phiioso-  lessness  and  wrongheadedness — to  the  care- 

phy  reacts  upon 

our  hves.          lessness  and  wrongheadedness  of  the  so- 
called  educated  world  as  a  whole — in  the 

matter  of  a  philosophy  of  life,  and  (2)  to  emphasize 

the  fact  that  this  false  thought  seriously  affects  our 

lives. 

Do  you  believe  that  the  physical  world  came  into 

existence  about  six  thousand  years  ago,  as  a  result  of  a 
process  of  creation  effected  in  six  days  by 

illustrations  of    the  personal  spirit  God,  and  do  you  also 

inconsistency  in  . 

thought.  believe  in  the  truths  of  biology,  geology, 

chemistry  and  physics  as  presented  by  the 
ablest  students  of  these  various  sciences  and  verified 
in  part  by  your  own  observation  and  experiment?  Or 
do  you  recognize  the  inconsistency  between  the  former 
and  the  latter  beliefs,  and  accept  the  one  rather  than  the 
other;  and  if  so,  what  is  the  underlying  principle  in 
accordance  with  which  you  have  reached  your  deter- 
mination? 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      29 

Do  you  believe  that  your  Creator  has  positively  and 
expressly  forbidden  you  and  all  pious  and  obedient 
children  of  men  to  carve  a  statue  or  make  any  physical 
representation  of  any  natural  object  to  be  found  on 
land  or  sea  or  of  any  heavenly  being  that  has  been 
imagined?  and  do  you  also  believe  that  the  Christian 
artists  who  spent  their  lives  in  decorating  the  churches 
of  Europe  with  paintings  and  carving  of  heavenly  beings, 
men,  and  things,  were  giving  an  innocent  expression 
to  their  religious  sentiments;  and  do  you  believe  that 
representative  art  has  a  legitimate  place  in  human  life 
and  in  the  development  of  the  human  spirit?1  Or  do 
you  accept  the  prohibition  and  deny  the  innocence  of 
representative  art,  or  reject  the  prohibition  and  be- 
lieve in  the  propriety  of  such  art?  And  in  either  case, 
what  is  it  in  your  philosophy  of  life  that  leads  you  to 
this  decision? 

Do  you  believe  in  predestination,  of  God  or  Fate  or 
Nature — do  you  believe  in  necessity,  or  in  free  will,  in 
arbitrary  choice?  Or  in  both!  and  why?  Do  you 
believe  that  man's  life  on  earth  is,  I  will  not  say  a 
pilgrimage  through  a  vale  of  tears,  but  merely  a  'pren- 
tice period  for  the  human  spirit,  incomparably  short 
as  compared  with  the  remainder  of  eternity  in  which 
the  spirit  of  man  is  to  live,  and  that  physical  life  and 
death  concern  the  body  of  man  alone,  his  will  and  his 


lrThe  Mohammedans,  whose  sacred  scripture  contains  a  prohibi- 
tion practically  identical  with  that  contained  in  the  Hebrew  decalogue 
(and  doubtless  borrowed  from  it)  take  this  commandment  literally, 
and  have  obeyed  it,  accepting  the  check  to  artistic  and  scientific 
development  that  is  involved  in  such  obedience. 


30  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

emotional  and  intellectual  activity  continuing  forever 
after  physical  death,  unless  God  shall  annihilate  them 
as  a  punishment  for  sin  or  in  accordance  with  a  pre- 
destinated plan  determined  upon  by  Him  before  the 
birth  of  the  being  in  question?  Or  on  the  other  hand, 
do  you  believe  that  man's  emotional,  intellectual  and 
volitional  activity  are  the  inner  aspects  of  his  physical 
existence,  with  which  they  are  in  life  associated;  that 
life  is  one;  that  feeling,  thought  and  will  are  the  neces- 
sary concomitants,  the  natural  expression,  of  life  in  all 
the  higher  organisms,  and  that  they  are  dependent  upon 
the  physical  substratum  of  that  life;  that  thought  is  the 
function  of  brain  activity  much  as  digestion  is  the 
function  of  the  activity  of  the  alimentary  canal,  al- 
though neither  thought  nor  digestion  is  itself  a  physical 
entity?  And  what  is  your  reason  for  holding  the  one 
rather  than  the  other  belief? 

One  may  say  perhaps  that  the  answer  to  a  number 
of  the  questions  just  proposed  is  of  very  little  practical 
importance.     But    surely    a    careful    con- 
Reaction  of        consideration  of  the  subject  will  show  that 
£f  conduct?*"    the  answer  to  the  last  inquiry  is  of  great 
owstreatmebift     ethical  significance.     And  this  is  not  the 
only    one    that    has    important    practical 
bearings.     Our  discussion  of  the  Problem 
of  Evil  must,  I  think,  indicate  how  great  a  part  the 
answer  to  the  question  of  necessity  or  free  will  must 
play  in  determining  our  attitude  toward  evil,  our  con- 
duct in  the  presence  of  evil,  our  treatment  of  the  evil- 
doer.    Were  evil  absolutely  fortuitous,  without  rhyme 
or  reason,  so  that  no  amount  of  study  or  of  foresight 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      31 

would  enable  us  to  diminish  it  or  to  avoid  it,  its  ethical 
significance  would  be  slight  indeed.  Were  evil  the 
result  of  arbitrary  choice  and  gratuitous  malicious 
volition,  we  might  meet  it  with  vengeance.  But  if 
evil  is  simply  the  necessary  consequence  of  the  imper- 
fect adaptation  of  the  individual  to  his  immediate 
environment — whether  the  evil  be  physical  or  moral, 
whether  it  come  directly  from  external  nature  or 
through  the  agency  of  a  fellow  being — then  to  over- 
come evil  we  must  direct  all  our  efforts  to  the  mastery 
of  science  and  the  development  of  human  nature  (to 
which  the  mastery  of  science  is  a  means).2  This  cer- 
tainly is  a  very  practical  conclusion. 

But  leaving  the  question  of  determinism  versus  arbi- 
trary choice,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  whole  conduct  of 
life  is  dependent  upon  our  estimate  of  the 
Great  practical    relative  importance  of  the  present,  earthlv 

importance  of  . 

our  estimate  of   life   as   compared   with   OUT   hypothetical 

the  relative  m 

value  of  our  future  spiritual  existence.  ro  one  who 
existence  as  confidently  believes  that  through  the  im- 

c ompa r ed  with  ..  •••»••«_!  i 

a  possible  future  mortality  of  the  individual  soul  an  eternity 

existence  ina          .          .  .         ..  .  -i-.il 

world  beyond,     of  existence  for  his  conscious  individual 

self  is  open  to  every  man  who  tries  to  obey 

the  teachings  of  his  religion  as  to  the  will  of  God,  and 

that  this  earthly  life  is  merely  an  infinitesimally  brief 

2If  I  were  required  to  give  in  a  few  words  my  own  answer  to  the 
question  of  Determinism  or  Free  Will,  I  should  say  that  the  will  is 
subjectively  free  but  objectively  determined.  That  is  to  say,  a 
man  is  free  to  do,  can  do  (within  necessary  physical  limitations,  of 
course),  what  he  wills,  what  he  chooses  to  do.  But  if  the  principle 
of  causality  (see  my  discussion  of  "The  Meaning  of  Explanation  and 
the  True  Interpretation  of  the  Principle  of  Cause  and  Effect)  has  any 
validity,  there  is  some  ground,  some  reason,  for  the  choice  that  each 


32  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

prelude  thereto,  having  no  other  significance  than  to 
test  his  readiness  to  take  the  first  step  toward  the 
eternal  life, — what  does  it  matter  whether  he  spends 
his  life  like  an  Indian  fakir,  standing  on  one  leg  in  the 
same  spot  with  arms  outstretched,  or  devotes  it  to 
picking  oakum;  whether  he  dreams  it  away  in  a  cloister, 
or  lives  wholly  for  the  investigation  and  exposition  of 
the  uses  of  the  ablative  case  in  Sanskrit;  whether  he 
gives  all  his  waking  hours  to  becoming  master  of  the 
behaviour  of  sodium  in  all  possible  chemical  combina- 
tions, or  to  piling  up  a  fortune,  or  whether  instead  of 
all  these  ideals  he  tries  to  live  the  largest,  fullest  life  of 
which  his  nature  is  capable,  mastering  as  far  as  possible 
all  that  has  yet  been  learned  of  the  wonderful  Universe 
in  which  he  lives,  and  so  exercising  all  the  faculties  of 
his  nature — physical  and  mental,  emotional  and  moral 
— as  to  become  as  complete  and  symmetrical  a  human 
being  as  his  own  natural  endowments  and  the  present 
stage  of  human  progress  makes  possible?  It  is  true 
that  the  last-mentioned  course  might  possibly  make 
the  few  moments  that  are  to  be  spent  here  on  earth, 
preliminary  to  launching  into  one's  true  life  in  eternity, 
a  little  more  enjoyable  and  useful  than  they  would 
otherwise  be;  but  on  the  other  hand,  such  a  course 

man  in  fact  makes,  *'.  e.  there  must  be  something  to  determine  what 
he  will  choose.  And  in  fact  his  choice  in  each  case  is  determined  by 
the  joint  action  of  heredity  and  environment — by  the  relation  between 
the  present  external  conditions,  the  material  for  choice,  and  the  man 
himself,  as  constituted  by  his  whole  past  history  up  to  the  instant  of 
choice  and  by  the  life  experience  of  his  ancestors  and  his  race — a 
complete  knowledge  of  which  (of  course  an  impossibility  for  any 
finite  being)  would  enable  any  third  person  to  predict  with  absolute 
certainty  the  choice  that  would  be  made  under  given  conditions. 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      33 

demands  considerable  mental  as  well  as  physical  ac- 
tivity, and  there  is  no  little  danger  that  it  might  dis- 
tract one's  attention  from  the  future  life;  an,d  so  far  as 
the  usefulness  of  such  a  course  is  concerned,  it  has  to 
do  mainly,  if  not  wholly,  with  the  mere  earthly  well- 
being  of  one's  fellows,  which  should  not  be  very  highly 
valued  by  an  Immortal  Soul,  especially  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  a  cloistered  life  of  prayer  and  pious  medita- 
tion might  contribute  to  their  spiritual  welfare,  which 
is  infinitely  more  important! 

I  wish  that  I  could  make  clear  to  others  how  vastly 

important   I   feel   the   antithesis   between   these   two 

points  of  view  to  be;  but  I  hardly  expect 

The  dualism      to  do  so,  for,  while  the  practical  effects  of 

involved  in 

"other-world-     the  difference  are  really  very  great,  they 

liness"  its  great  . 

practical  evil,  are  less  obvious  than  subtile,  or,  rather, 
the  more  obvious  differences  are  not  the 
most  important  ones.  The  essence  of  the  difference 
seems  to  be  this:  that  those  who  believe  that  a  man's 
three  score  years  and  ten  are  but  a  mere  prelude  to  his 
eternal  existence,  all  hold  that  a  mans  spiritual  welfare 
is  entirely  distinct  from  and  quite  independent  of,  his 
physical  well-being;  for  those  who  so  think,  the  inner 
life  is  a  thing  wholly  apart  from  the  outer  physical  ex- 
istence; and  while  care  for  the  latter  may  in  some  cases 
do  no  harm  to  the  former,  and  while  the  lover  of  men's 
souls  may  interest  himself  also  hi  the  well-being  of  their 
bodies,  yet  such  interest  and  the  corresponding  activity 
is  aside  from  the  true  purpose  of  life. 

I  am  not  blind  to  the  fact  that  this  point  of  view,  or 
at  least  a  nominal  acceptance  of  and  partial  belief  in 


34  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

this  theory,  has  given  us  many  noble  and  beautiful 

lives,    has    given    us    most    of    those    elder    brothers 

of  mankind  to  whom  we  look  back  with 

The  recognition  reverence    and    thankfulness ;    nor    do    I 

of  the  unity  of  ' 

life,  of  the  in-    faji  to  see  that  the  other  point  of  view 

terdependence 

of  psychic  and     has  been  that  of  many  coarse  and  selfish 

physical  pheno- 
mena, opens  the  egotists,   and  that    it   sometimes   appears 

mind  and  heart 

to  every  influ-    as   the    parent    of,    or    at    least    as    the 

ence,  and  by 

leading  us  to      sponsor  for,  that  mad  quest  for  immediate 

realize  that  the     r.  . 

present  alone  is  enjoyment    which    destroys    the    lives    of 

ours,  does  the          J    " 

utmost  for  the    thousands  of  the  youth  of  every  advanced 

development  of      .....  .  . 

the  future.  civilization.  And  yet  I  am  convinced, 
not  only  that  the  latter  is  the  truer, 
that  it  is  the  true  point  of  view,  but  also  that 
it  is  the  one  that  has  the  most  promise  for  the  moral 
and  spiritual  welfare  of  mankind;  because  while  the 
belief  that  spirit  and  body  are  fundamentally  distinct 
and  separate  and  that  our  proper  concern  is  with 
the  former  alone,  has  the  tendency  to  justify  us  in 
confining  our  attention  to  but  a  part  of  that  which  is, 
to  but  &  fraction  of  reality,  and  in  moments  of  spiritual 
stress  is  likely  to  cause  us  to  turn  our  backs  to  science 
and  to  art,  and  while  from  this  point  of  view  the  life  of 
the  Indian  fakir,  who  spends  his  days  in  motionless 
trance,  and  that  of  the  filthy  mediaeval  monk,  who 
spent  the  years  in  prayer  and  self-castigation,  are  logical 
and  proper;  the  other  point  of  view,  on  the  contrary, — 
the  point  of  view  that  life  is  one,  that  spirit  and  body 
are  the  inner  and  outer  sides  of  the  one  being,  whose 
welfare  is  dependent  upon  their  joint  development, — 
this  point  of  view,  intelligently  held,  requires  not  only 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      35 

that  we  shall  recognize  that  the  present  alone  is  fully 
ours,  but  that  we  shall  consider  all  that  is,  that  mind 
and  heart  be  thrown  open  to  every  influence;  it  is  based 
upon  the  assumption  that  nothing  is  too  mean  to  com- 
mand the  reverent  attention  of  man,  that  nothing  is  so 
insignificant  that  it  will  not  help  man  to  understand 
himself, — the  topmost  flower  upon  the  tree  of  life,  the 
heir  of  the  ages, — and  so  contribute  to  the  enrichment 
and  perfection  of  life. 

Only  by  this  study  of  all  with  which  life  brings  us 

into  relation,  of  the  whole  Universe  of  which  man  finds 

himself  to  be  a  part,  can  man  learn  to  live 

A  true  ideal       aright.     The  true  ethical  ideal,  which  shall 

upon  the  whole  supplement  the  instincts  man  has  inherited 

of  human  ex-        ,  i  •      i  111 

penence.  from  his  human  and  subhuman  ancestors, 

shall  check  and  complement  them;  which 
shall  enable  this  being  that  has  attained  to  reason  to 
lead  a  truly  rational  life,  studying  the  impulses  which 
stir  him  and  from  this  study  learning  to  live  an  ordered 
life,  to  which  the  balancing  of  one  impulse  over  against 
another  shall  give  consistency  and  symmetry  and  poise, 
instead  of  an  aimless  life  of  blind  instinct,  now  directed 
by  one,  the  next  moment  by  another  impulse, — this 
true  ethical  ideal  can  be  no  other  than  a  working  hypothe- 
sis as  to  the  right  conduct  of  life,  attained  as  a  result  of 
the  consideration  of  all  the  facts  that  enter  into  life. 

That  all  ideals  are  necessarily  based  upon  the  real, 
is  a  fundamental  truth  that  is  generally  ignored.  Let 
us  remember,  not  only  that  an  ideal  not  based  upon  the 
real  would  be  worthless,  b*ut  that  it  could  not  exist. 
We  are  too  prone  to  talk  as  though  ideals  were  self- 


36  RELIGIO   DOGTORIS 

existent  entities,  independent  of  all  human  experience; 

as  though  all  that  we  regard  as  high  ideals  had  been  set 

in  the  sky  at  the  beginning  of  time  for  man 

Aii  ideals  are     ^o  }ook  Up  toand  strive  after.     But  if  we 

based  upon  r 

reality.  leave  the   realm  of  poetry   and  consider 

But  the  false      seriously  what  we  mean  by  an  ideal,  we 

ideals  handed 

down  to  us  by    shall  find  that  all  ideals  are  based  upon 

tradition  are  . 

based  upon  the  reality  and  owe  their  existence  to  human 

imperfect  ap-  . 

prehensions  of    experience.     Many  of  the  ideals  that  have 

reality  that  ob-  * 

tamed  in  more    been,  and  that  still  are,   held  up  before 

primitive  stages  .  ..     . 

of  civilization,  man,  have,  it  is  true,  very  little  apparent 
kinship  with  reality;  they  are  often  fan- 
tastic and  absurd,  equally  impossible  of  attainment 
and  undesirable  if  attained;  but  this  is  so,  not  because 
they  arose  independently  of  reality,  but  because  they 
were  based  upon  an  imperfect  apprehension  of  some 
partial  phase  of  reality,  and  not  upon  a  comprehensive 
study  of  the  whole  of  reality.  What  is  an  ideal?  It  is 
— is  it  not? — an  idea  of  something  worthy  of  one's 
attainment.  Like  all  other  icteas,  it  must  arise,  as  a  part 
of  human  experience,  from  the  reaction  of  the  human 
mind  to  the  reality  with  which  it  is  confronted,  which 
forms  the  content  of  its  consciousness.  The  savage 
acquires  his  ideals  as  a  result  of  cruder  thinking  than 
ours,  it  may  be,  but  in  the  same  general  way  that  the 
highly  civilized  man  in  the  twentieth  century  acquires 
his;  and  the  savage  is  often  as  ready  to  suffer  to  the  last 
extremity  for  the  sake  of  his  (in  our  opinion)  false  ideals, 
as  we  are  for  our  more  elevated  ones.  But  neither  the 
intensity  of  his  conviction  nor  the  completeness  of  his 
self-immolating  devotion  gives  the  sanction  of  divine 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      37 

truth  to  the  savage's  ideals — nor  to  ours.  Not  a  few  of 
the  ideas  and  ideals  that  still  exercise  a  considerable 
influence  among  civilized  peoples,  are  based  upon  the 
narrow  experiences  and  imperfect  apprehensions  of 
reality  that  characterize  a  rudimentary  stage  of  civili- 
zation, and  were  gradually  given  a  definite  formulation 
by  the  intellectual  leaders  of  a  still  very  imperfectly 
civilized  people.  In  all  such  cases  the  ideal,  itself 
formulated  in  an  early  day,  corresponds  to  a  conception 
of  life  that  arose  still  earlier;  and  yet  it  often  happens 
that  the  ideal  thus  formed  and  thus  formulated  is 
insisted  upon  as  that  to  which  man's  conduct  in  the 
quite  different  world  of  a  later  stage  of  civilization, 
with  its  broader  horizons  and  deeper  insights,  must 
conform. 

Why  is  it,  let  us  now  ask  ourselves,  that,  throughout 
the  course  of  human  history,  the  ideals  of  ignorant  and 

child-minded  ancestors  have  controlled  the 
Reasons  for  conduct  or  the  thought  of  their  much  more 
t"fdseetradi-  mature  and  better  informed  descendants; 
tionai  ideals.  or  at  jeast  nave  constituted  the  creed  ^vhich 

the  latter  have  felt  under  moral  obligation 
to  confess,  even  though  in  their  actual  conduct  they 
might  run  counter  to  it  and  might  often  be  compelled 
to  do  so  by  the  circumstances  of  the  times  in  which 
they  lived,  and  even  though  deep  in  the  recesses  of 
their  souls  they  might  not  feel  it  to  be  true?  Partly, 
of  course,  because  of  the  power  of  custom,  of  habit,  of 
tradition;  because  of  the  natural  (and  proper)  disposi- 
tion to  believe  what  one  is  told,  especially  by  his  parents 
and  elders  and  by  those  whose  lives  are,  or  are  sup- 


38  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

posed  to  be,  given  to  the  study  and  teaching  of  moral 
and  religious  truth.  And  we  are  the  more  completely 
subject  to  these  traditional  ideals  when  we  have  no 
satisfactory  and  complete  substitute  for  them;  when 
we  have  not  ourselves  had  the  leisure,  the  inclination 
or  the  ability  to  think  out  for  ourselves  a  theory  of 
conduct  that,  while  avoiding  the  defects  of  the  tradi- 
tional one,  should  have  all  its  real  or  supposed  advan- 
tages. Further  than  this,  our  deference  to  a  traditional 
ideal  is  greatly  strengthened  by  the  consideration  that 
it  has  taken  form  through  the  activity  of  the  best  and 
ablest  men  of  that  elder  day  in  which  it  was  first  formu- 
lated, and  that  it  has  been  acknowledged  by,  and  in 
some  measure  at  least  has  actually  controlled  the  lives 
of,  the  great  majority  of  the  best  men  of  succeeding 
times.  And  finally,  it  is  generally  true  that  while 
most  of  those  we  honor  as  men  who  have  tried  to  do 
right  and  to  serve  their  fellows,  and  who  in  some  mea- 
sure have  succeeded  therein,  have  professed  allegiance 
to  the  old  ethical  ideals,  a  great  number  of  those  who 
have  denied  its  validity  have  lived  badly, — their  lives 
deserving  disapproval  not  alone  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  old  ethical  ideal  in  question,  but  also  from  the 
standpoint  of  regard  for  their  own  health  and  wellbeing 
and  for  the  wellbeing  of  others, — indeed,  it  might  often 
be  said,  from  the  standpoint  of  science,  humanity  and 
common  sense. 

Here  is  the  strength  of  all  the  old  ideals, — that, 
whether  or  not  they  be  conducive  to  true  progress  and 
adapted  to  the  conditions  of  life  of  those  among  whom 
they  prevail,  at  any  rate,  true  or  false,  they  are  ideals! 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      39 

For  however  much  the  world  may  outwardly  make 
sport  of  ideals  and  idealists,  and  although  it  justly 
contemns  the  man  of  one  idea,  and  deeply  deplores 
fanaticism,  yet  at  heart  all  mankind,  and  perhaps 
most  of  all  the  practical  man  of  the  world,  respects  the 
man  who  by  his  conduct  shows  that  he  has  an  ideal, — 
in  other  words,  the  man  whose  life  follows  some  plan, 
or  at  least  has  some  guiding  principle,  and  thus  shows 
that  he  is  on  the  human  plane,  capable  of  perceiving 
that  which  is  not  immediately  present  to  any  one  of  the 
five  senses,  and  of  working  for  distant  or  non-material 
ends. 

Bearing  all  this  in  mind,  we  shall  perhaps  be  able  to 
understand  the  form  that  the  standing  quarrel  be- 
tween the  conservative  idealist   and  the 

Blind  deference  revolutionary  realist  so  often  and  so  un- 
to tradition  and  . 

moral  nihilism    fortunately    takes.     The    latter    despises 

alike  unsatis-         -        -  m    i   i      i     i    •  •      » 

factory.  the  former  as  a  self-deluded  fantast,  lack- 

ing in  intelligence  or  in  honesty  and  frank- 
ness, or  in  both;  while  the  former  shudders  at  the  latter 
as  a  conscienceless  sensualist,  devoid  of  appreciation  of 
all  that  is  noblest  in  human  life.  And  far  too  often 
both  in  their  adverse  judgments  are  in  a  measure  right; 
for  neither  has  a  philosophy  of  life  arising  out  of  his 
own  thought  and  feeling  and  based  upon  a  study  of 
himself  and  the  world.  The  former  is  the  slave  of 
habit  and  tradition,  shouts  the  old  shibboleths  because 
the  majority  of  the  respectable  world  does  so,  and  for 
the  same  reason  acts  inconsistently  therewith  in  a 
hundred  particulars  with  perfect  serenity;  while  the 
latter's  thought  is  mostly  negative  and  destructive,  or 


40  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

at  best  critical,  not  constructive.  Although  the  lat- 
ter professes  to  believe  that  nothing  exists  without 
an  adequate  cause,  he  makes  no  serious  effort  to 
understand  the  ground  of  his  opponent's  error,  but 
contents  himself  with  ridiculing  his  absurdities  and 
denouncing  his  inconsistencies.  The  patent  incon- 
sistency of  many  of  the  traditional  ideals  with  one 
another,  with  the  actual  conditions  of  life,  and  with 
healthy  human  instincts,  has  induced  a  revolt,  and 
the  rebel  has  simply  thrown  the  old  ideals  overboard, 
instead  of  attempting  to  reconstruct  them,  and  has 
determined  to  lead  a  free  life — which  too  often  means 
that  he  proposes  to  sail  without  chart  or  compass, 
abandoning  himself  to  every  impulse  (instinctive  or 
reasoned,  as  the  case  may  be)  as  it  arises,  regardless 
for  the  time  being  of  all  else  in  life.  He  is  as  much 
a  slave — to  his  passions — as  his  opponent  is  a  slave — to 
tradition  and  habit.  The  life  of  the  latter  is  at  least 
brooded  over,  if  not  actually  controlled,  by  a  vague 
sense  of  duty  arising  from  the  current  traditional  con- 
ceptions of  God,  of  immortality,  and  of  the  freedom 
of  the  human  will,  and  is  further  conditioned  by  the 
acceptance,  in  name  or  in  fact,  of  a  body  of  specific 
beliefs  and  rules  of  action, — more  or  less  consistent 
with  one  another  and  with  human  experience,  but 
coming  to  him  in  the  main  from  without,  not  springing 
out  of  his  own  thought  and  feeling  as  his  own  interpre- 
tation of  life.  He  is  in  a  large  measure  the  slave  of  the 
past,  a  subject  not  a  citizen  of  the  moral  world.  But 
the  disciple  of  the  gospel  of  revolt  of  whom  we  have 
just  been  speaking,  is  just  as  little  a  citizen  of  the 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      41 

moral  world;  his  attitude  is  rather  that  of  the  anarch- 
istic nihilist,  who,  dissatisfied  with  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  life  as  he  finds  it,  proposes,  not  to  substitute 
a  better  for  it,  but  to  dispense  with  all  moral  order. 

Neither  of  the  adversaries  has  attained  to  or  even 
sought  for,  a  true  philosophy  of  life, — which  must  be 
The  life  en-  based  upon  a  recognition  of  all  that  is,  and 
^philosophy  in  accordance  with  which  the  conduct  of 
£oUrabiean°dth  life  will  be  controlled  by  the  relations 
beautiful.  ^^  are  foun(j  ^o  subsist  between  the 

individual  self  and  all  else  hi  the  universe  (every  part 
of  which  is  related,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  every 
other  part).  A  life  thus  enlightened  by  philosophy 
will  neither  be  that  of  a  pilgrim  sojourning  for  a  brief 
period  in  a  vale  of  tribulation,  nor  that  of  an  adven- 
turer wielding  a  free  lance  in  a  world  of  hazard  out  of 
which  he  is  trying  to  carve  his  fortune;  it  will  be  the 
earnest,  loving,  moral  life  of  the  joint  heir  of  the  ages, 
seeking  to  make  the  home  that  he  and  his  brothers 
have  inherited  as  beautiful,  and  the  life  in  that  home 
as  noble,  as  may  be  possible. 

A  great  practical  evil  of  the  doctrine  that  man's  life 

here  and  now  (of  which  he  has  certain  knowledge)  is 

but  a  prelude  to  a  future  existence  (as  to 

"Other-world-  v 

Hness"  leads  us  which   he   has   no   certain   knowledge,    it 

to  neglect  that  .  ,    T  •  •       ?         • 

which  is,  in  the  being  merely  a  matter  of  belief),  is  that  it 

interest  of  that 

which  is  ima-    leads  us  to  look  upon  actual  human  life 

gined,  treating 

human  lives  as   as  a  means,  not  as  an  end  in  itself, — thus 

a  mere  means        .,.  ,         T_  •   i    i       i      i         i          i 

to  some  ulterior  violating  what  Kant  rightly  declared  to  be 
a  fundamental  ethical  principle.*     Instead 

*Kant's  insistence  upon  this  point  seems  to  me  to  go  far  to  make 
atonement  for  the  injury  his  philosophy  has  done  to  the  cause  of  truth. 


42  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

of  living,  largely  and  truly,  men  are  content  to  make 
of  all  of  life  of  which  they  have  certain  knowledge,  a 
mere  preparation  for  a  future  state  of  existence.  This 
tendency  shows  itself  not  alone  in  the  life  of  the  fakir 
of  the  East  and  the  nun  of  the  West  and  in  the  narrow 
and  often  sour  life  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  non-conformist 
of  the  last  three  centuries;  the  influence  of  this  attitude 
toward  life  is  carried  over  into  purely  secular  affairs, 
showing  itself  in  the  protest  of  the  conservative  against 
any  broadening  of  the  lives  of  the  lower  classes,  whose 
duty  it  is,  we  are  piously  assured,  to  be  content  in  that 
position  in  which  it  has  pleased  Providence  to  place  them 
(that  is  their  road  to  Heaven;  and  if  they  get  there,  what 
does  it  matter  whether  the  short  stretch  of  road  leading 
thereto  be  rough  and  stony,  dark  and  r  arrow,  or  broad, 
bright  with  sunshine  and  carpeted  with  flowers!)  In- 
deed this  seems  to  be  the  fundamental  error  of  the 
great-hearted  Jesus,  who  by  his  gospel  of  love  has  done 
so  much  to  bring  sweetness  and  light  into  the  life  of 
mankirid,  but  who  in  such  utterances  as  "Blessed  are 
the  poor,  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  "It 
is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle 
than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven," 
and  other  more  or  less  similar  expressions,  including 
perhaps  that  which  the  Johannine  Gospel  attributes 
to  him,  "He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that 
hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto  life 

The  spokesman  of  a  transition  period  in  human  thought,  his  masterly 
expression  of  that  which  was  felt  to  be  the  need  of  the  hour, — the 
acceptance  of  the  verdict  of  reason  without  the  abandonment  of  what 
was  regarded  as  the  indispensable  foundation  of  morality, — not  only 
satisfied  the  immediate  desire  for  a  presentable  theory  of  thought  and 
life,  but  discouraged  progress  in  philosophy  by  leading  men  to  rest 
content  with  paradox. 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      43 

eternal,"  seems  to  perpetuate  the  Buddhist  error  that 
self-abnegation  has  a  value  in  and  of  itself,  apart  from 
any  service  to  others  that  may  be  wrought  there- 
through, and  to  unduly  minimize  the  dignity  and 
importance  of  the  present  life  in  comparison  with  life 
in  a  world  beyond;  thus  leading  men  to  believe,  not 
merely  that  a  narrow  and  miserable  earthly  life  is  a 
matter  of  spiritual  indifference,  but  that  such  a  life  is 
indeed  to  be  preferred,  inasmuch  as  the  best  places  in 
Heaven  are  to  be  reserved  for  those  who  lead  a  miser- 
able life  on  earth.  But  not  only  has  this  religious 
doctrine  been  consciously  carried  over  and  made  a 
social  and  political  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  con- 
servative; it  has  unconsciously,  as  it  were,  entered 
into  the  social,  political,  industrial  and  scientific  life 
of  mankind,  exercising  a  great  influence  upon  the 
actual  organization  of  society  at  large  and  of  scientific 
and  educational  undertakings,  and  conditioning  the 
thought  of  many  social  theorists.  It  is  largely  respon- 
sible for  that  widely  prevalent  ideal  which  I  may  call 
the  ant-ideal  of  society.  A  child — the  most  beautiful 
and  perfect  blossom  of  the  tree  of  life,  springing  from 
its  topmost  twigs — is  born  into  the  world;  but  instead 
of  being  allowed  to  develop  freely  and  naturally,  as 
would  be  the  case  with  such  a  blossom  upon  a  tree 
growing  wild,  when  it  would  be  followed  by  the  fruit 
in  due  season,  the  stock  upon  which  it  grows  has  been 
committed  to  the  care  of  the  orchardist,  whose  every 
effort  is  to  force  the  fruit,  though  it  be  at  the  expense 
of  the  flower.  To  change  our  metaphor  slightly,  I 
would  compare  man  (not  to  the  flower  alone,  but)  to 


44  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

the  whole  plant,  and  would  insist  that  this  human 
plant  should  be  treated  as  an  end  in  itself,  not  as  a 
mere  means  for  the  production  of  fruit,  as  with  the 
orchard  peach  tree,  nor  merely  as  a  means  for  the 
production  of  flowers,  as  in  the  case  of  the  garden  rose 
bush.  In  a  German  rose  garden  one  finds  two  sticks 
from  two  or  three  to  six  or  eight  feet  high,  the  thicker 
one  being  the  artificial  support  and  the  thinner  one  the 
living  rose  stalk  which  is  fastened  to  it.  At  the  top  of 
this  bare  stem  is  a  clump  of  leaves  and  large,  beautiful 
and  fragrant  roses.  In  an  English  orchard  you  may 
see  a  stumpy,  stocky,  close-trimmed  something,  once 
destined  by  Nature  to  be  a  tree  but  now  trained  against 
a  sunny  brick  wall;  and  if  you  visit  it  at  the  right  sea- 
son of  the  year,  you  may  pluck  from  this  deformed 
tree  a  basket  of  luscious  peaches.  I  am  not  question- 
ing the  propriety  of  the  gardener's  activity,  and  I  am 
far  from  disputing  that  he  has  been  successful  in  pro- 
ducing large  and  beautiful  flowers  by  thus  controlling 
the  growth  of  the  plant  and  subordinating  every  other 
function,  including  the  production  of  fruit,  to  this  one 
end;  nor  do  I  doubt  that  by  torturing  the  peach  tree 
into  the  semblance  of  a  vine,  by  removing  many  of  the 
blossoms  and  subordinating  everything  else  in  the  life 
of  the  tree  to  his  one  purpose,  the  orchardist  succeeds 
in  producing  large,  fine,  sweet  fruit;  and  I  am  grateful 
for  both  the  beautiful  roses  and  the  luscious  peaches, 
the  superiority  of  which  to  the  bitter  almond  from 
which  the  peach  is  believed  to  have  been  developed  is 
beyond  question.  And  yet,  as  I  observe  the  grace  and 
beauty  of  an  unpruned  tree,  and  follow  its  natural 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      45 

development  throughout  the  year,  now  a  great  pink- 
brown  plume,  with  swelling  buds  and  tender  shoots; 
later  its  wide-spreading,  graceful  boughs  adorned  with 
delicate  and  fragrant  blossoms,  relieved  perhaps  by 
the  soft  yellow-green  of  the  young  leaves;  in  midsum- 
mer a  mass  of  richest  verdure,  in  the  midst  of  which 
the  nut  clusters  or  the  ripening  fruits  have  begun  to 
show  themselves;  and  still  later  the  foliage,  which  had 
become  dark,  turning  light  again,  as  it  were  in  the 
second  childhood  of  advanced  age;  and  thea  at  last 
the  gorgeous  twilight  of  the  tree's  annual  life,  the 
variegated  beauty  of  the  green  and  bronze  and  red  and 
yellow  of  the  dying  leaves, — as  I  see  all  this  and  much 
more  than  I  can  describe  of  grace  and  beauty  and  rich- 
ness and  variety  of  life  in  the  natural,  spontaneous 
development  of  a  living  thing,  I  can  not  think  it  best 
that  man's  life  should  either  be  so  cultivated  as  to  sub- 
ordinate everything  else  to  the  flower,  as  is  the  spend- 
thrift pleasure-seeker's,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  should 
be  pruned  and  deformed  in  the  present,  to  force  the 
fruit  of  the  future,  as  is  the  life  of  the  religious  devotee 
and,  hardly  less  so,  the  life  of  the  industrial  or  scientific 
specialist,  who,  being  "born  a  man,  dies  a  grocer"  or 
it  may  be  a  mine  laborer,  a  chemist  or  a  philologist. 

When  shall  we/ understand  that  the  learned  and  dis- 
tinguished professor  of  philosophy  who  at  sixty  years 
of  age  observed  for  the  first  time  the  astonishing 
fact  that  there  was  a  generic  difference  in  the  shapes 
of  leaves,  and  that  those  of  the  oak  and  of  the  chest- 
nut were  not  alike,*  is  an  uneducated  man,  whose 

*A  fact. 


46  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

culture  is  pitifully  deficient.  And  such  a  case  is  by 
no  means  unique,  although  at  first  glance  it  may 
The  lives  of  appear  to  be  so.  What  of  the  gifted 
educated  an" of  botanist  who  has  not  yet  decided  whether 
narrowed  lop-  the  current  religious  ideas  of  his  generation 
asdtehoseofeU  were  miraculously  revealed  to  a  certain 
and  poverty-  part  of  the  human  race  some  centuries 
ago  or  were  "invented  by  an  ambitious 
priesthood,"  but  who  takes  for  granted  that  the  truth 
is  to  be  found  in  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  crude 
hypotheses?  What  off  the  musical  genius  who  has  a 
vague  idea  that  waving  palms  grow  at  the  top  of  the 
Andes?  What  of  the  learned  scholar  whose  historical 
investigations  have  made  him  famous  throughout  the 
civilized  world,  but  who  believes  that  all  the  activity 
of  sub-human  beings,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest, 
is  directed  by  a  mysterious  something  characteristic  of 
animals  and  denominated  Instinct,  while  for  the  guid- 
ance of  man  in  sublunary  affairs  there  exists  a  some- 
thing entirely  distinct  from  and  wholly  unrelated  to 
instinct,  which  is  denominated  Reason,  and  for  the 
direction  of  man's  spiritual  life  there  is  a  third,  and 
again  an  utterly  distinct  and  unrelated  something, 
yclept  Intuition?  What  of  the  profound  student  of 
social  institutions  who  cannot  drive  a  nail  without 
smashing  his  finger?  What  of  the  great  physicist  who 
has  a  notion  that  several  hundred  or  thousand  years 
ago  there  was  an  absolute  monarchy  at  Rome  which, 
as  the  result  of  an  unusual  degree  of  oppression  by  the 
reigning  king,  was  suddenly  displaced  by  a  government 
"of  the  people,  for  the  people  and  by  the  people," 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      47 

similar  to  that  which  prevails  in  the  United  States 
today,  which  republican  government  had  a  long  and 
prosperous  existence  until  an  ambitious  citizen  named 
Julius  Caesar  took  advantage  of  a  frontier  war,  in 
which  he  commanded  the  army  of  the  republic,  to  win 
the  favor  of  his  soldiers  and  then  with  their  assistance 
overthrow  the  loyal  adherents  of  liberty,  equality  and 
fraternity,  whose  leader  was  named  Brutus,  and  sub- 
stitute a  second  absolute  monarchy  for  the  republic, 
whereupon  Rome  became  an  empire  (because  the 
people  had  a  traditional  prejudice  against  the  name 
kingdom)  and  so  continued  until  the  pope  converted 
to  Christianity  the  last  Emperor,  who  then  resigned 
his  throne  to  the  Vicar  of  God  upon  earth?  What  of 
the  rich,  accomplished  nobleman,  courteous  and  dig- 
nified, who  eats  and  drinks,  gambles,  dances,  makes 
love,  fights  and  patronizes  art  from  one  year's  end  to 
the  other,  but  who  has  no  interest  in  economic  indus- 
try, in  science  or  in  philosophy?  What  of  the  painter 
who  does  not  know  whether  the  land  in  which  he  ex- 
hibits his  artistic  ability  is  a  despotism  or  a  constitu- 
tional state?  What  of  the  business  man  who  is  never 
at  ease  out  of  his  office  and  who-  cannot  understand 
how  grown  men  can  waste  their  time  in  out-of-door 
recreations;  or  of  the  scholar  who  spends  his  whole  life 
in  his  study?  When  shall  we  understand  that  all  of 
these  alike  are  half-educated,  uncultured  fractions  of 
men,  who,  instead  of  realizing  their  glorious  human 
birthright,  have  become  mere  cogs  in  a  social  machine! 
The  cases  I  have  just  given  are  typical  of  the  dis- 
torted, unsymmetrical,/rac<w>na/  lives  that  our  brethren 


48  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

in  all  ranks  of  society  are  leading  today.  It  is  pitiful, 
it  is  almost  maddening  to  see  the  heir  of  the  ages  thus 
ignore  his  birthright,  and  live  a  stranger  in  his  own 
home,  deriving  little  or  no  enjoyment  from  the  untold 
wealth  that  nature,  science  and  art  lay  at  his  feet;  a 
pauper  in  a  palace;  too  poor  in  spirit  to  open  his  eyes 
to  the  beauty  that  lies  all  about  him,  or  to  enjoy  the 
actual  mastery  of  the  resources  of  life  that  belong  to 
him  as  a  man! 

There  are  a  number  of  reasons  for  this  unfortunate 
state  of  affairs,  one  being  the  notion  that  it  is  necessary 
Supposed  justi-  to  the  constitution  of  civilized  society  that 
fhese°cramped  men  should  be  fitted  for  the  performance 
SiKSSin  of  different  functions,— head-workers  and 
ofVcompiex8  hand-workers,  students  of  literature,  of 
civilization.  biology,  of  astronomy,  of  history,  of  paint- 
ing, of  economics,  of  brick-making,  of  psychology, 
etc., — and  that,  division  of  labor  being  the  condition 
of  progress,  the  more  complete  the  division  the  better, 
and  therefore  a  head-worker  should  not  be  expected  to 
have  the  ability  to  use  his  hands,  nor  a  handworker  to 
have  the  capacity  to  reason  on  abstract  questions ;  for 
art  is  long  and  time  is  fleeting,  and  "the  shoemaker 
should  stick  to  his  last. "  Even  if  we  did  not  know  it  to 
be  the  Divine  Will  that  some  men  should  in  this  life  be 
hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  while  others  should 
be  similarly  confined  to  their  possibly  more  elevated  but 
still  limited  functions,  we  are  told,  the  requirements  of 
civilization,  the  law  of  progress,  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  make  imperative  narrow  specialization.  No 
man  today,  it  is  said,  can  hope  to  know  all  that  has 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      49 

been  discovered  in  the  different  departments  of  art 
and  science  or  to  take  part  in  all  the  different  kinds  of 
human  activity;  human  civilization  is  much  too  far 
advanced  for  that  and  the  present  accumulations  of 
human  science  immeasurably  too  vast.  On  the  con- 
trary it  is  only  by  means  of  the  greatest  diligence  that 
one  can  hope  to  gam  even  a  practical  working  mastery 
of  that  one  little  department  of  science  or  art  in  which 
he  is  to  do  his  work.  So,  a'  God's  name,  select  your 
line  of  endeavor  and  get  to  work  in  it  as  quickly  as 
possible,  and,  once  having  selected  your  specialty, 
stick  to  it!  It  is  specialization,  or  in  other  words  the 
division  of  labor,  that  distinguishes  civilization  from 
savagery;  only  for  the  lower  stages  of  civilization  is  it 
possible  for  every  normal  individual  to  do  and  know  all 
that  the  race  does  and  knows.  If  you  wish  retrogression 
to  take  the  place  of  progress,  then  by  all  means  let 
every  man  try  to  know  everything  for  himself  and  do 
everything  for  himself.  Let  us  have  feeble  amateurism 
instead  of  the  mighty  strides  of  science,  dilettanteism 
in  the  place  of  art ;  first  a  stationary  instead  of  a  progres- 
sive civilization,  then  retrogression,  and  finally  the 
silly  enthusiast's  ideal — a  return  to  the  state  of  nature, 
i.  e.  savagery! 

Now,  that  there  is  an  abundance  of  truth  in  what 
has  just  been  set  forth,  no  thoughtful  and  candid  man 
will  deny;  and  yet  in  so  far  as  the  attempt  is  therein 
made  to  invalidate  the  contention  that  men  do  not 
live  broadly  and  largely  enough,  do  not  hi  their  lives 
take  sufficient  account  of  all  that  is,  do  not  see  to  it 
that  their  lives  are  as  broadly  human  as  they  should 


50  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

be,  it  is  misleading  and  fallacious.  Carrying  the  pur- 
port of  the  implied  argument  to  its  logical  conclusion, 
specialization  should  be  pushed  farther  and 
justification  farther,  until  different  parts  of  the  eom- 
munity  should  be  bred  for  certain  "points" 
alone,  so  that  we  might  have  a  veritable 
numan  ant-heap—  the  ideal  of  industry  and 
general  "tS*  of  the  division  of  labor  !  But,  unf  ortunate- 
d  fust  *lf  only  '  ^^h  the  ants  and  termites  the  division 


^abor  is  carried  so  far  that  individual 
realized.  integrity  and  completeness  of  life  is  entirely 

sacrificed.  To  say  nothing  of  the  slaves  of 
these  insect  communities,  the  great  majority  of  the 
true-born  members  themselves  have  become  so  physical- 
ly specialized  that  they  have  ceased  to  be  complete, 
normal  animals,  and  have  become  mere  workers,  they 
have  lost  sexual  capacity  and  can  only  be  nurses,  not 
mothers.  Let  us  beware  of  setting  such  an  ideal  before 
ourselves.  If  my  conception  of  humanity  is  true,  we 
cannot  but  regard  as  evil  specialization  that  is  carried 
so  far  as  to  regard  the  individual  man  as  a  mere  means, 
ceasing  to  regard  him  as  an  end  in  himself.  Because 
we  should  not  expect  an  historian  to  make  with  his 
own  hands  a  modern  locomotive,  it  does  not  follow 
that  he  should  be  so  manually  awkward  and  physically 
undeveloped  that  he  could  not  sharpen  a  pencil  or 
drive  a  nail  without  cutting  his  finger  or  bruising  his 
thumb,  and  could  not  carry  a  hod  of  coal  up  one  flight 
of  steps  without  fainting  from  exhaustion.  Because  it 
is  unreasonable  to  expect  a  machinist  to  classify,  and 
describe  the  life-history  of,  any  microscopic  organism 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE        51 

that  may  happen  to  be  shown  him,  it  does  not  follow 
that  he  should  be  so  ignorant  of  biology  as  to  believe 
that  the  only  methods  of  reproduction  are  those  with 
which  he  is  familar  in  the  case  of  the  chick  and  the 
kitten.  As  a  life-long  student  of  education,  I  assert 
that  it  is  entirely  possible  for  a  normal  youth  of,  say, 
nineteen  to  have  had  such  a  physical  training  and 
mental  equipment  as  shall  give  him  a  fair  understanding 
of  himself  and  of  the  general  nature  of  the  world  of 
which  he  is  a  part,  in  its  physical,  chemical,  biological 
and  psychic  aspects;  fit  him  to  live  a  large,  human  life 
in  that  world;  and  make  it  impossible  that  he  should 
ever  become  a  mere  machine  for  the  production  of 
some  specialty,  however  earnestly  he  may  devote 
himself  to  his  particular  vocation:  and  indeed  some- 
thing approaching  this  can  be  accomplished  for  the  lad 
of  fourteen.  I  am  no  enemy  of  the  division  of  labor, 
but  I  do  plead  for  a  broad  and  human  foundation  for 
specialization;  and  I  venture  the  assertion  that  the 
historian  who  has  some  knowledge  of  biology  will  be  a 
far  more  intelligent,  and  hence  a  more  useful,  historical 
specialist,  than  his  brother  historian  who  could  not 
spare  a  few  hours  out  of  his  life  to  learn  anything  that 
had  not  a  direct  and  obvious  bearing  upon  his  specialty. 
I  grant  that  the  broadly  educated  and  physically 
developed  student  of  history,  who  has  retained  a 
healthy  craving  for  fresh  air  and  exercise,  who  has 
some  insight  into  the  processes  of  nature  that  are 
going  on  in  the  world  about  him  and  into  the  principles 
of  physics  in  accordance  with  which  the  wonderful 
machines  that  do  man's  work  have  been  constructed, 


52  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

who  takes  not  an  historical  interest  alone  but  a  truly 
aesthetic  enjoyment  in  the  world's  great  works  of  art, 
and  to  whom  history  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  a  finality, 
but  a  means  of  assisting  men  to  understand  the  present 
constitution  of  society,  and  thus  a  help  to  him  in  his 
endeavor  to  improve  the  condition  of  mankind  in  the 
present  and  the  future — I  grant  that  such  a  man  will 
not  be  so  likely  to  give  ten  hours  a  day  to  his  specialty, 
as  the  historian  who  knows  nothing  but  the  records  of 
the  past  and  cares  for  nothing  else;  but  I  believe  that 
five  hours  of  historical  work  each  day  from  the  former 

will  be  worth  more  to  the  world  than  the 
The  more  com-  ten  hours  of  the  latter;  I  know  that  the 

former's  life  will  be  worth  more  to  himself 
crue1"  than  the  latter's,  will  be  a  larger,  truer, 
wad*  aseahspec-  more  human  and  happier  life,  and,  being 
iaiist  will  be.  tniS)  j  am  convinced  that  it  will  bless  the 

world  more.  For  what,  after  all,  is  the 
benefit  of  civilization  if  it  is  not  to  enable  men  and 
women  to  live  larger,  sweeter,  happier  lives?  What 
is  the  advantage  of  progress,  what  the  good  of  science 
and  of  art,  if  no  one  is  to  take  time  to  enjoy  them?  I 
am  reminded  of  the  story  of  the  prosperous  Illinois 
farmer  who  worked  very  hard  so  that  he  might  be  able 
to  add  a  neighboring  strip  of  land  to  his  already  large 
farm.  Although  every  one  may  know  the  story,  it  will 
do  no  harm  to  repeat  it  until  everyone  has  seriously 
considered  the  moral.  Asked  why  he  wanted  the 
additional  land,  he  answered  that  he  would  thereby 
be  enabled  to  raise  more  corn;  and  when  the  benefit 
to  come  from  this  was  inquired  into,  he  stated  that 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  EVERYDAY  LIFE      53 

he  could  then  fatten  more  hogs.  "And  what  good  will 
that  do  you?"  "With  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  the 
hogs,"  he  replied,  "I  can  buy  more  land."  "And 
then?" — Why  then  of  cdurse  I  can  raise  more  corn  and 
fatten  more  hogs  and  buy  more  land!" 

But  what  has  this  to  do  with  the  antithesis  between 
the  view  that  regards  life  on  earth  as  a  mere  preliminary 
to  eternal  existence,  and  that  which  looks 
alleged*  fustifi-  upon  our  earthly  existence,  here  and  now, 
£Sr°onw  ifiite-  as  the  great  f act  of  life»  the  onlv  existence 
!iyes!liesuthen  of  which  we,  as  individuals,  have  certain 
knowledge?  Just  this:  that  back  of  the 
justification  set  forth  in  the  preceding 
paragraph  for  the  philosophy  of  life  that 
finds  it  proper  to  disregard  man's  natural 
craving  for  largeness  and  completeness  of  life,  and  to 
make  the  individual  man  a  mere  cog  in  a  social  ma- 
chine, and  back  of  all  other  possible  justifications  for 
such  a  treatment  of  human  life,  is  the  notion  that  after 
all  it  does  not  much  matter  whether  man's  earthly 
life  be  large  and  full  and  free  or  narrow  and  deformed — 
"I'm  but  a  pilgrim  here,  Heaven  is  my  home!"  With- 
out the  support  of  this  idea,  the  other  justifications  for 
the  confinement  and  distortion  of  human  life  would 
not,  I  believe,  have  stood  as  many  hours  as  they  have 
centuries.  In  this  "  other- worldliness "  lies  the  root 
of  the  mischief!  Nothing  therefore,  in  my  opinion, 
stands  more  in  the  way  of  true  human  progress — pro- 
gress in  sweetness  and  light,  that  is,  progress  in  right 
living,  not  necessarily  progress  in  the  acquisition  of 
material  goods  nor  even  in  the  advancement  of  isolated 


54  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

branches  of  science — than  the  failure  to  estimate  life 
here  and  now  at  its  proper  value, — a  failure  that 
seems  to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  we  have  treated  the 
hypothesis  of  immortality  as  the  most  significant  fact 
of  human  existence. 

From  the  practical  point  of  view,  then,  I  maintain 
that  philosophy  is  of  the  utmost  importance, — even 

more  important  for  us  all  today  than  what 
mSSe°sPtsLeif  we  call  science.  For  "What  shall  it  profit 
i?onhoftaowi-"  a  man  though  he  gain  the  whole  world  and 
wlfdom!0  lose  his  own  life?"  What  good  is  there  in 

adding  to  our  knowledge  of  the  laws  of 
nature  if  we  do  not  thereby  get  any  assistance  hi  living 
larger  and  happier  (that  is,  better)  lives?  What  we 
need  most  of  all  is,  not  the  accumulation  of  items  of 
information,  but  that  which  shall  convert  our  knowl- 
edge into  wisdom,  and  that  is — philosophy. 


Ill 

THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION 

THE   TRUE   INTERPRETATION   OF  THE   PRINCIPLE   OF 
CAUSE  AND   EFFECT 

"Flower  in  the  crannied  wall, 
I  pluck  you  out  of  the  crannies; — 
Hold  you  here,  root  and  all,  in  my  hand, 
Little  flower — but  if  I  could  understand 
What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is." 

TENNYSON 

EVERY  normal  child  is  an  animated  interrogation 
point.  Every  young  vertebrate,  to  go  no  lower  in  the 
scale  of  life,  is  full  of  curiosity.  Curiosity  is  indeed  the 
sign  manual  of  intelligence.  And  yet,  although  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave  we  are  continually  demanding 
and  offering  explanations,  we  rarely  ask  ourselves  the 
simple  fundamental  question,  what  the  true  nature  of 
an  explanation  is.  Notwithstanding  that  this  question 
is  the  fundamental  one  for  philosophy,  the  conception 
which  the  professed  students  of  philosophy  have  held 
as  to  the  true  function  of  explanation  has  often  been  as 
vague  and  unintelligent  as  that  of  the  child  or  the  un- 
educated man  or  woman;  and,  worse  than  this,  the 
failure  to  grasp  the  true  meaning  of  explanation  has 
too  often  been  concealed  under  a  somewhat  pretentious 
traditional  classification  of  causes,  which  has  served  to 

56 


56  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

keep  the  layman  from  recognizing  the  legitimate  limita- 
tions of  explanation,  and  has  even  tended  to  prevent 
the  student  of  physical  science  from  clearly  formulating 
to  himself  what  a  legitimate  scientific  explanation  is. 
The  devotee  of  physical  science,  however,  although  he 
may  never  have  formulated  the  idea,  has  a  pretty 
definite  notion  of  what  is  meant  by  the  explanation  of  a 
physical  phenomenon;  and  it  is  to  him  that  we  may 
best  look  for  guidance  in  the  attempt  to  get  a  clear  idea 
of  what  is  accomplished  by  an  explanation. 

Has  anything  ever  been  satisfactorily  explained  to 
you?  "Yes,"  says  one  man;  "hundreds,  thousands  of 
things  have  been  explained  to  me."  "No,"  says 
another,  answering  in  the  spirit  of  Tennyson's  apos- 
trophe to  the  flower  in  the  crannied  wall;  "I  have  had 
partial  explanations  of  myriads  of  things,  some  more 
and  some  less  complete,  but  I  have  never  yet  received 
a  complete  explanation  of  anything. "  Comparing  these 
two  answers,  I  think  we  shall  see  in  what  sense  it  is 
true  that  anything  can  be  explained,  and  what  the 
legitimate  function  of  explanation  is.  Every  one  will 
doubtless  admit  that  both  answers  are  true.  The  latter 
is  the  exact,  philosophical  answer;  the  former  is  the 
practical  one.  The  child,  the  practical  man  of  affairs, 
the  student  of  science  has  learned  the  explanation  of 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  things,  and  has  perhaps,  in 
turn,  explained  hundreds  of  things  to  others.  In  what 
have  these  explanations  consisted?  Always  simply  in 
this :  in  showing  the  relations  of  the  thing  in  question:  in 
bringing  out  the  relations  of  the  several  parts  of  the 
thing  to  one  another  and  to  the  whole,  or  in  showing 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION         57 

the  connection  of  this  thing  with  other  things.  If  the 
matter  is  at  all  complex  and  the  explanation  is  at  all 
far-reaching,  it  may  embrace  both  of  these  processes. 
The  explanation  of  a  map  or  chart  or  of  a  state  con- 
stitution may  consist  primarily  in  the  former  process, 
bringing  out  clearly  the  relations  of  the  parts.  The 
explanation  of  such  a  natural  phenomenon  as  a  fall  of 
snow  or  the  Gulf  Stream  consists  primarily  in  showing 
the  relation  of  the  thing  as  a  whole  to  other  facts  of 
nature.  Yet  it  should  go  without  saying  that  a  thorough 
understanding  of  the  snow  storm  or  of  the  Gulf  Stream 
requires  a  full  knowledge  of  all  that  is  included  under 
the  term  snow  or  Gulf  Stream,  itself,  no  less  than  a 
knowledge  of  the  precedent  natural  phenomena  which, 
as  we  say,  stand  in  a  causal  relation  to  the  phenomenon 
under  consideration.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  al- 
though the  explanation  of  a  state  constitution  may  be 
primarily  concerned  with  a  clear  exposition  of  its  vari- 
ous parts  and  their  mutual  relations,  yet  the  explana- 
tion would  be  quite  meaningless  if  one  had  no  knowl- 
edge of  the  relations  of  government  to  human  well-being 
and  social  progress;  and,  in  like  manner,  the 'exposition 
of  the  relations  of  the  various  parts  of  a  chart  to  one 
another  would  constitute  no  practical  enlargement  of 
knowledge  if  the  meanings  of  the  symbols  therein  used 
— i.  e.  their  relation  to  the  actual  phenomena  of  life  and 
nature — were  not  understood.  In  other  words,  then, 
whether  the  relations  to  which  our  attention  be  called 
l>e  primarily  internal  relations  or  external  relations, 
every  explanation  really  involves  both  kinds  of  rela- 
tions, and  the  bringing  clearly  to  consciousness  Uie  rela- 


58  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

tions  of  the  thing  in  question  is  what  is  meant  by  explain- 
ing it. 

But  the  relations  of  everything  are  really  infinite. 
The  whole  of  human  knowledge  is  a  complex  unity  with 
ragged  edges  reaching  out  into  the  unknown.  The 
Universe,  so  far  as  we  know  it  at  all,  we  know  as  an 
infinitely  vast  whole,  every  part  of  which  is  directly  or 
indirectly  related  to  every  other.  In  proportion  as  we 
grasp  these  relations,  does  the  world  become  to  us  a 
true  cosmos,  a  veritable  Universe;  hi  proportion  as  we 
are  ignorant  of  them,  does  the  world  remain  for  us 
chaotic.  Thus  there  is  literal  truth  in  the  poetic  con- 
ception that  Reason — which  some  of  the  Greeks  and 
some  modern  philosophers  have  deified — is  the  creator 
of  the  Cosmos,  which  it  forms  out  of  Chaos.  But  what 
is  the  bearing  of  the  infinitude  of  relations  for  every- 
thing that  exists,  for  every  object  of  consciousness, 
upon  the  question  before  us,  the  scope  of  explanation? 
Obviously  this,  that  a  complete  explanation  of  anything 
is  impossible  so  long  as  we  do  not  know  everything.  As 
Tennyson  has  so  beautifully  suggested,  if  we  knew  all 
that  there  is  to  know  about  the  simplest  little  flower, 
we  should  have  reached  the  ultimate  explanation  of  all 
that  is,  the  last  secret  of  the  universe  would  be  un- 
locked, and  we  should  be  divine  in  knowledge  and 
doubtless  also  in  power.  If  anyone  says  that  he  knows 
all  that  there  is  to  know  about  anything,  he  must  be 
regarded  either  as  one  who  has  spoken  carelessly  or  as 
a  pretentious  dunce.  Perhaps  that  which  most  dis- 
tinguishes the  scientific  thinker  from  the  unscientific 
layman,  is  that  while  the  latter  is  liable  to  feel  that  he 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION         59 

knows  a  great  many  things  perfectly,  or  at  any  rate 
that  somebody  knows  all  that  there  is  to  know  about  a 
certain  thing,  the  true  scientist  is  ever  conscious  that 
he  has  but  the  beginnings  of  knowledge  concerning  that 
with  which  he  is  best  acquainted,  and  in  reference  to 
which  the  world  may  look  to  him  as  master.  A  com- 
plete explanation  of  the  most  ordinary  human  event 
requires  not  only  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  contem- 
porary conditions,  the  natural  environment  in  which 
the  event  takes  place,  but  also  of  the  constitution, 
psychic  and  physical,  and  therefore  of  the  life  and  race 
history,  of  the  individual  or  individuals  concerned;  and 
either  line  of  investigation  takes  us  back  to  the  ultimate 
facts  of  existence,  to  primary  physical,  chemical  and 
biological  laws,  and  requires  a  complete  knowledge  of 
the  process  of  evolution.  But  we  need  not  take  such  a 
complex  matter  as  an  event  m  human  life;  a  perfect 
knowledge  of  the  simplest  natural  object  conceivable, 
says  a  quartz  pebble  lying  on  a  beach,  would  lead  us 
to  the  fundamental  laws  of  existence,  and  require  such 
a  knowledge  of  the  temporal  and  spacial  development  of 
nature  that  we  should  have  the  key  to  the  knowledge 
of  all  that  is.  So  long,  then,  as  men's  knowledge  is 
finite,  a  perfect  explanation  of  anything  is  impossible. 
Although,  however,  a  complete  knowledge  of  any- 
thing has  never  yet  been  attained  by  man,  he  has  attain- 
ed to  a  practical  explanation — an  explanation  that 
goes  far  enough  to  answer  his  immediate  purpose — in 
the  case  of  untold  myriads  of  things.  He  has  an  im- 
perfect knowledge  of  the  properties  of  wood,  stone  and 
iron,  of  the  ordinary  processes  of  inanimate  nature,  and 


60  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

of  the  relations  of  the  heavenly  bodies  to  one  another; 
of  the  physical  constitution,  emotional  nature  and  in- 
tellectual methods  of  living  beings;  of  the  physical  and 
biological  development  of  the  globe  he  inhabits,  and  of 
the  course  of  human  history;  of  the  conventional  signi- 
ficance of  a  large  body  of  gestures,  sounds  and  marks: 
and  the  more  perfect  his  knowledge  the  more  fully  does 
he  apprehend  the  relations  of  these  various  kinds  of 
knowledge  to  one  another,  the  more  do  they  tend  to 
constitute  a  unity  of  knowledge,  having  for  its  object  a 
universe  of  being,  and  not  a  mere  "job  lot"  of  isolated 
items  of  information.  The  explanation  of  any  new  ob- 
ject of  inquiry  consists  in  showing  the  relations  it  bears 
to  the  things,  processes  or  laws  with  which  one  has  some 
previous  familiarity. 

The  foregoing  discussion  may  seem  to  be  but  the 
unnecessary  setting  forth  of  a  very  "simple  thing"  hi  a 
very  "solemn  way";  but  the  corollaries  of  the  truth  as 
to  the  function  and  limitations  of  explanation  seem  to 
me  to  be  sufficiently  important  to  justify  some  prosi- 
ness  in  emphasizing  just  what  the  function  and  limita- 
tions are. 

One  corollary  is  that  the  positing  of  first  or  final 
causes  is  not  explanation.  In  so  far  as  any  relation 
between  the  subject  of  inquiry  and  anything  of  which 
we  have  some  previous  knowledge  is  shown,  a  step  is 
taken  toward  explaining  the  former,  it  is  partially 
explained.  But  to  refer  the  matter  in  question  at  once 
to  an  assumed  ultimate  or  first  cause,  is  not  to  explain 
it,  but  to  avoid  an  explanation  of  it.  If  you  desire  an 
explanation  of  some  wonderful  structure,  your  desire 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION         61 

is  certainly  not  satisfied  when  you  are  told  that  John 
Smith  or  Thomas  Edison  or  God  made  it.  That  tells 
you  nothing  as  to  the  processes,  laws  and  materials  of 
which  John  or  Thomas  or  God  availed  himself  in  form- 
ing it;  does  not  help  you  to  connect  it  with  and  incor- 
porate it  into  such  knowledge  of  the  Universe  as  you 
already  have.  You  know  that  Smith  or  Edison  did  not 
create  it  by  a  "Hey,  presto!"  out  of  nothing.  And  if 
you  could  be  induced  to  believe  that  God  did  so  create  it, 
the  one  significant  effect  of  this  miraculous  verbal  ex- 
planation would  be  that,  although  you  might  still  value 
the  thing  in  question  for  its  function,  your  interest  in  it 
as  a  structure  would  be  almost  if  not  quite  extinguished, 
since  it  would,  by  the  hypothesis,  have  no  relation  to 
the  laws  and  processes  of  nature  as  to  which  you  had 
gamed  some  knowledge,  and  hence  a  close  study  of  it 
would  do  nothing  to  complete  your  previous  knowledge 
except  by  putting  along  side  of  it  a  disconnected  fact. 
To  name  anything  as  the  "cause"  of  something  else, 
then,  is  not  to  explain  the  latter,  except  in  so  far  as  the 
term  used  to  denote  the  cause  may  bring  to  mind  such 
phenomena  as  serve  to  connect  the  alleged  effect  with 
so  much  of  the  Universe  as  is  already  partly  understood. 
This  fact  suggests  the  second  important  corollary  of 
the  true  nature  of  explanation,  to  wit :  that,  accurately , 
scientifically  and  philosophically  speaking,  no  one  fact 
is  the  cause  of  any  other  fact,  except  in  the  merely 
verbal  sense  that  the  statement  of  the  alleged  causal 
fact  may  really  include  within  itself  the  effect;  as  when, 
for  instance,  one  says  that  the  death  of  a  senator  from 
Vermont  was  the  cause  of  a  vacancy  in  Vermont's 


62  RELIGIO  DOCTOHIS 

senatorial  representation.  In  a  scientific  and  philoso- 
phical, as  distinguished  from  a  verbal  sense,  no  single 
thing  can  be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  any  phenomenon, 
however  simple.  If  we  are  accurate,  we  shall  always 
have  to  do  with  causes  rather  than  a  single  cause. 
Everything  that  contributes  to  the  event  in  question  is 
a  part  of  its  cause;  the  attempt  to  distinguish  between 
the  various  conditions  of  an  event  and  its  one  true 
cause,  is  a  vain  one,  and  eminently  unphilosophical, 
notwithstanding  the  eminence  of  some  of  those  who 
have  maintained  it.  Philosophically  and  scientifically 
considered,  all  the  necessary  conditions  are  a  part  of 
the  cause,  and  the  alleged  true  cause  is  but  one,  perhaps 
the  most  prominent,  of  these  conditions.  In  popular 
language,  however,  we  speak  of  a  single  cause  for  an 
event,  simply  because  the  thing  alleged  is  that  part  of 
the  cause  which  has  practical  interest  for  us. 

It  may  be  well  to  illustrate  the  multiplicity  of  cir- 
cumstances which  unite  to  cause  an  event,  by  one  or 
two  simple  illustrations  that  will  at  the  same  time 
show  how  unsafe  a  guide  in  this  matter  is  popular  speech, 
which,  according  to  the  point  of  view,  may  fix  upon  any 
one  of  a  hah*  dozen  different  conditions  as  the  cause  of 
an  event. 

A  man  is  found  dead,  the  cause  of  his  death  not  being 
at  first  known.  An  autopsy  is  held;  and  the  physicians 
conducting  the  autopsy  are  interested  to  know  whether 
the  cause  of  his  death  was  an  injury  to  the  heart,  the 
lungs,  the  liver,  or  some  other  organ  or  organs.  The 
pious  daughter  who  ordered  the  autopsy  was  concerned 
to  prove  that  the  loved  father  had  not  committed  the 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION         63 

sin  of  "self-murder."  A  preliminary  investigation 
brings  out  the  fact  that  the  death  was  caused  by  some 
quick-acting  poison  which  was  probably  not  adminis- 
tered by  the  deceased  himself,  and  circumstances  point 
to  the  probability  that  he  was  murdered  by  a  recently 
discharged  servant.  The  toxicologist  who  examines 
the  stomach  is  not  interested  to  know  whether  John 
Smith  or  Peter  Brown  caused  the  death  of  the  deceased, 
but  whether  it  wras  poison  A  or  poison  B  or  poison  C. 
Finally  we  have  three  different  causes  alleged.  The 
physicians  who  conducted  the  autopsy  solemnly  an- 
nounce that  the  cause  of  the  death  was  heart  failure. 
The  chemist  says  strychnine  was  the  cause  of  the  death. 
The  court  declares  that  the  death  was  caused  by  William 
Jones,  a  former  valet  of  the  deceased.  Only  one  cause 
is  alleged  by  each  of  these  authorities  respectively,  and 
yet  the  different  answers  are  all  consistent  with  one 
another,  differing  only  by  reason  of  the  point  of  view. 
Popular  usage  justifies  us  hi  speaking  of  that,  as  the 
cause  of  an  event,  which  is  of  primary  importance  from 
the  special  point  of  view  of  the  moment.  In  the  case 
just  presented,  the  answers  might  be  united  by  saying 
that  the  deceased's  death  was  caused  by  the  act  of 
William  Jones  hi  stopping  the  action  of  the  heart  by 
administering  a  dose  of  strychnine.  But  such  a  state- 
ment does  not  by  any  means  exhaust  all  that  might  be 
said  as  to  the  cause  of  the  death. 

Take  another  case.  John  appears  with  a  scarred  face, 
minus  his  eyebrows.  What  caused  this?  It  appears 
that  James  thought  his  gun  was  not  loaded,  when  it 
actually  contained  a  charge  of  powder,  and  that  he 


64  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

pointed  it  at  John's  face  and  pulled  the  trigger.  A 
half  dozen  things  might  be  alleged  as  the  cause  of  the 
scarred  face, — James'  careless  folly,  the  pulling  of  the 
trigger  by  James,  the  presence  of  powder  in  the  gun, 
the  explosive  nature  of  the  powder,  the  fact  that  the 
gun  was  pointed  at  John,  the  fact  that  the  muzzle  was 
within  a  foot  of  John's  face,  etc.  But  no  one  of  these 
things  alone  would  have  produced  the  scars  on  John's 
face;  it  took  all  of  them  together  to  produce  the  scarring 
of  John's  face.  And  in  fact,  if  we  had  to  account  for 
the  scarring  of  John's  face  to  one  who  knew  nothing  to 
start  with  (if  such  a  case  were  conceivable),  there  would 
be  no  end  to  the  facts  that  we  should  have  to  allege  as 
contributing  causes  of  the  event  in  question, — the 
power  of  a  human  being,  such  as  James,  to  produce 
motion  by  an  impulse  of  the  will;  the  delicacy  and  sus- 
ceptibility of  the  human  skin  to  the  influence  of  fire, 
etc.,  etc.  All  these  and  numberless  other  facts  were 
necessary  to  the  production  of  the  effect  in  question, 
were  a  part  of  that  which  caused  it,  and  no  one  of  them 
alone,  and  no  number  of  them  together,  could  have 
caused  the  event,  while  one  single  element  was  lacking. 
Among  other  necessary  conditions  was  a  certain  brief 
period  of  time  between  the  pulling  of  the  trigger  and 
the  impact  of  the  flame  and  powder  upon  John's  face. 
Had  every  other  condition  been  fulfilled,  had  the  mouth 
of  the  gun  been  within  a  foot  of  John's  face  when  the 
trigger  was  pulled,  but  had  it  been  possible  to  remove 
John's  face  or  to  interpose  a  screen  before  the  expira- 
tion of  the  extremely  short  length  of  time  necessary 
for  the  passage  of  the  flame  and  powder  to  John's  face, 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION         65 

the  event  under  discussion,  the  scarring  of  John's  face, 
would  not  have  taken  place. 

There  is  a  point  to  be  observed  here  which  is  of  more 
importance  than  it  may  at  first  seem.  Philosophers 
have  disputed  as  to  whether  the  cause  actually  precedes 
the  effect  (as  is  popularly  assumed)  or  is  simultaneous 
with  it.  Kant — rightly,  as  it  seems  to  me — maintained 
that  cause  and  effect  are  simultaneous.  Of  course  a 
part  of  the  cause — the  pointing  of  the  gun  at  John's 
face,  for  example,  or  the  administration  of  the  poison 
in  our  other  illustration — precedes  the  effect;  but  a 
part  of  the  cause  is  not  the  cause;  everything  that 
contributes  to  the  result  in  question  must  take  place 
before  the  cause  is  complete ;  and  when  the  last  requisite 
for  the  completion  of  the  cause  is  at  hand,  we  have  the 
effect;  in  other  words,  the  effect  does  not  follow  the 
completion  of  the  cause,  but  is  simultaneous  with  it. 
You  cannot  cause  a  lemonade  to  be  produced  by  any 
amount  of  lemon,  water  and  sugar,  so  long  as  they  re- 
main apart.  A  lemon,  a  glass  of  water  and  a  spoonful 
of  sugar  no  more  make  a  lemonade  than  a  box  of  nails, 
a  can  of  milk  and  a  sack  of  salt.  It  is  the  proper 
combination  of  the  lemon  juice,  water  and  sugar  that 
makes  the  lemonade;  and  when  this  combination  takes 
place  -not  after  it  has  taken  place,  but  just  as  soon  as 
it  takes  place — you  have  the  lemonade.  Let  it  be  re- 
peated then,  an  effect  does  not,  in  strict  accuracy,  fol- 
low its  cause,  but  is  simultaneous  with  the  completion 
of  the  cause. 

The  apprehension  of  this  truth  may  enable  us  to  go  a 
step  farther,  and  assert  that,  in  a  strict  physical  sense, 


66  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

as  contradistinguished  from  an  historical  sense,  the 
completed  cause  and  the  effect  are  identical.  This 
may  seem  too  extreme  a  statement,  and  perhaps  re- 
quires a  little  further  explanation,  after  which  it  may 
be  enforced  by  an  illustration  sho  ing  that  in  fact 
popular  usage  suggests  that  this  is  true  by  sometimes 
naming  as  cause  that  which  is  at  other  times  named  as 
the  effect,  and  vice  versa.  In  order  to  understand  and 
realize  the  justification  for  the  statement  that  cause 
and  effect  are  actually  identical,  we  must  emphasize 
that  not  only  is  it  true  that  the  completed  cause  and  the 
effect  are  simultaneous,  but  that,  conversely,  nothing 
that  is  really  prior  to  the  effect  can  properly  be  con- 
sidered the  cause  thereof.  To  revert  to  our  illustration, 
the  charging  of  the  gun  with  powder,  the  intention  on 
James's  part  to  startle  John  by  pointing  a  gun  at  him, 
the  actual  aiming  of  the  gun  at  John's  face,  even  the 
pulling  of  the  trigger — no  one  of  these  things  was  the 
cause  of  the  scarring  of  John's  face;  for  either  or  all  of 
these  things  might  have  taken  place  and  John's  face 
might  still  be  as  unscarred  as  ever.  It  was  not  the 
PREVIOUS  pointing  of  the  gun  at  John's  face,  but  the  fact 
that  when  the  powder  and  flame  issued  from  the  gun 
they  came  in  contact  with  John's  face,  together  with  the 
other  necessary  conditions,  that  caused  the  scarring  of 
his  face.  The  effect  upon  John's  face  would  have  been 
the  same,  whether  John  had  just  moved  to  the  point 
at  which  the  gun  happened  to  be  pointed,  or  the  gun 
had  just  been  pointed  at  the  spot  where  John's  face 
happened  to  be.  It  was  the  actual  concurrence  of  all 
the  conditions  necessary  to  produce  the  effect  that 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION         67 

caused  it,  not  the  previous  circumstances  that  led  to 
the  concurrence.  The  concurrence  of  all  the  necessary 
conditions  for  the  production  of  the  effect  might  have 
been  brought  about  in  a  different  way, — John,  for 
instance,  being  blind  and  deaf,  might  have  inadvert- 
ently stepped  between  James  and  his  intended  target 
at  the  very  moment  the  gun  was  being  discharged, — 
and,  however  brought  about,  the  concurrence  of  the 
same  conditions  would  have  had — yes,  would  have  been 
— the  same  effect.  The  simultaneous  concurrence  of 
all  the  necessary  conditions  produces  the  event,  is  its 
cause;  but  it  is  also  true  that  this  concurrence  of  the 
contributing  elements  constitutes  the  event,  i.  e.  is  the 
effect.  For  in  a  strictly  scientific,  physical  sense,  the 
effect  which  was  caused  by  the  conjunction  of  the 
conditions  referred  to  above  was  not  the  scarred  face 
which  John  now  has,  but  the  scarring  of  John's  face 
which  then  took  place.  If  the  accident  took  place  two 
years  ago,  the  present  scarred  appearance  of  John's 
face  is  the  result,  not  of  the  accident  alone,  but  of  the 
accident  plus  all  that  has  since  taken  place  in  connection 
with  John's  face;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  passage  of 
two  years  hi  which  the  healing  power  of  nature  has  had 
time  to  work  will  doubtless  have  brought  about  a  very 
visible  improvement  in  the  appearance  of  the  scarred 
face.  The  same  thing  might  be  said  if  the  event  took 
place  two  months  or  two  weeks  ago,  although  in  the 
latter  cases  the  change  in  the  appearance  of  John's 
face  would  naturally  not  be  so  great  as  it  would  be  if 
two  years  had  elapsed  since  the  act  of  scarring  took 
place.  If  the  accident  had  taken  place  only  two  seconds 


68  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

ago,  even  though  we  might  be  unable  to  detect  any 
difference  between  the  present  appearance  of  John's 
face  and  its  appearance  at  the  moment  the  event  took 
place,  yet  the  same  reasoning  would  hold;  it  would  be 
equally  true  that  the  scarred  face  which  John  would 
now  present  would  not  be  wholly  the  effect  of  the  con- 
junction of  circumstances  that  we  designate  as  the 
accident  that  scarred  John's  face,  but  which  we  might 
perhaps  with  increased  accuracy  designate  as  the 
accidental  scarring  of  John's  face.  The  scarring  of 
John's  face  was  the  event  in  question,  and  this  term 
designates  at  once  cause  and  effect.  Anything  actually 
prior  to  the  event  was  not  the  cause;  at  most  it  was 
something  less  than  the  cause,  an  element  contributing 
to  the  cause.  Anything  actually  subsequent  to  the 
event  is  not  the  effect;  at  least  it  is  something  more 
than  the  effect,  something  doubtless  which  results  from 
the  effect  but  in  which  there  is  an  addition  thereto;  it 
is  the  effect  as  modified,  appreciably  or  inappreciably, 
by  the  subsequent  passage  of  time  and  the  events 
that  have  taken  place  therein. 

This  coalescence  or  identity  of  cause  and  effect, 
from  the  strictly  physical  point  of  view,  is  indeed  in  a 
measure  recognized  in  popular  speech.  Take  the  use 
of  the  word  "accident"  (which  from  the  etymological 
point  of  view  is  a  better  term  than  "event"  to  describe 
the  coincidence  of  cause  and  effect  in  a  given  occurrence) 
for  illustration.  While  one  newspaper  may  say,  "An 
unfortunate  accident  occurred  yesterday,  the  unsightly 
scarring  of  our  young  townsman  John  Johnson's  face 
by  the  carelessness  of  his  brother  James;"  another 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION        69 

newspaper  account  may  read,  "An  accident  on  Beacon 
street  was  caused  yesterday  by  the  folly  that  has  pro- 
duced so  many  similar  occurrences,  the  supposition 
that  'the  gun  was  not  loaded' ; "  and  a  third  journal  may 
state  that  "an  accident  which  took  place  yesterday  on 
Beacon  street  caused  Master  John  Johnson  a  serious 
disfigurement."  In  this  third  account  it  will  be  ob- 
served that  the  accident  is  spoken  of  as  the  cause;  hi 
the  second  account  the  accident  appears  as  the  effect; 
while  hi  the  first  account  the  accident  is  (most  properly 
perhaps)  regarded  as  the  whole  occurrence  (i.  e.  cause 
and  effect).  As  a  further  illustration  of  the  inter- 
changeability  of  the  conceptions  of  cause  and  effect 
(arising  from  the  fact  that  both  terms  in  strictness 
refer  not  to  different  phenomena,  but  to  different 
aspects  of  the  same  occurrence, — the  term  "cause" 
applying  to  the  various  elements  of  the  occurrence 
when  it  is  dynamically  considered,  when  considered  as 
a  becoming;  the  term  "effect"  describing  the  occurrence 
when  statically  considered,  when  considered  as  being), 
it  may  be  asked  whether  the  fire  causes  the  wood  to 
burn  or  the  wood  causes  the  fire  to  burn.  The  owner 
of  a  pile  of  fine  fat  pine  wood,  which  is  piled  up  in  the 
corner  of  his  lot,  complains  that  a  fire  carelessly  kindled 
by  the  children  has  caused  every  stick  of  his  wood  to 
be  burned  up;  the  man  next  door  complains  that  the 
kindling  wood  in  the  corner  of  his  neighbor's  lot  was 
the  cause  of  such  a  destructive  fire  that  his  fence  was 
burned  up,  his  shed  injured,  and  his  dwelling-house 
endangered.  A  chemist  in  the  course  of  a  lecture  on 
oxygen,  hi  which  its  chief  properties  are  set  forth,  tells 


70  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

us  that  the  combustion  of  oxygen  is  the  cause  of  fire. 
A  sanitary  engineer,  delivering  a  lecture  on  house 
ventilation,  tells  us  that  fire  causes  the  combustion  of 
oxygen,  and  therefore  when  there  is  a  fire  hi  the  room 
the  importance  of  keeping  up  the  supply  of  fresh  air  is 
at  a  maximum.  The  fact  of  course  is  that  "fire"  and 
"the  combustion  of  oxygen"  are  different  expressions 
for  what  is  at  bottom  the  same  phenomenon.  In 
short,  it  is  not  only  true,  as  we  have  previously  seen, 
that  now  one  and  now  another  necessary  condition  is 
regarded  as  the  cause  of  a  given  occurrence, — the 
singling  out  of  this,  that  or  the  other  condition  as  the 
cause  being  determined  by  the  point  of  view  or  by  the 
special  purpose  in  mind, — but,  further  than  this,  that 
which  from  one  point  of  view  is  regarded  as  the  cause 
may  from  another  point  of  view  be  considered  as  the 
effect,  and  vice  versa.  The  toxicologist  says  that  strych- 
nine caused  a  particular  death;  the  court  of  justice 
declares  that  a  murderer  named  William  Jones  caused 
the  death  hi  question.  The  chemist  says  that  the  com- 
bustion of  oxygen  causes  fire;  the  sanitary  engineer 
tells  us  that  fire  causes  the  combustion  of  oxygen. 

In  answer  to  the  assertion  that  nothing  which  is  prior 
to  an  event  can  constitute  its  cause,  but  that  it  is  the 
actual  concurrence  of  the  conditions  necessary  to  the 
event  which  causes  it,  and  that  the  event  would  happen 
whether  this  concurrence  of  conditions  were  brought 
about  in  one  way  or  another, — there  is,  I  believe,  but 
one  line  of  attack,  and  that  I  am  quite  ready  to  wel- 
come if  only  it  be  followed  to  its  legitimate  conclusion. 
It  may  be  said  that  the  actual  scarring  of  John's  face 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION         71 

at  ten  minutes  and  thirty  seconds  past  four  on  the 
ninth  of  October,  1890,  in  a  room  in  the  second  story 
of  No.  32  Beacon  street,  by  the  explosion  from  a  gun 
pointed  at  John  by  James,  etc.,  etc.,  is  a  particular 
historical  event,  and  that  we  have  to  do  with  that  par- 
ticular event,  with  the  effect  that  was  then  and  there 
actually  produced,  and  not  with  any  might-have-beens; 
that  one  of  the  concurrent  conditions  that  brought 
about  this  particular  effect  was  the  relative  position 
of  the  mouth  of  the  gun  and  John's  face  at  the  moment 
of  the  explosion,  and  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  that 
relative  position  had  been  brought  about  by  the  fact 
that  James  had  just  previously  pointed  the  gun  at  John, 
and  had  kept  it  so  pointed  until  the  explosion  took 
place;  that  therefore,  while  it  is  true  that  the  effect  did 
not  take  place  until  the  actual  concurrence  at  the  given 
moment  of  time  of  all  the  necessary  conditions, — the 
relative  position  of  John's  face  and  the  mouth  of  the 
gun,  the  delicate  texture  of  John's  skin,  the  atmospheric 
medium  in  which  the  explosion  was  possible,  the  actual 
explosion,  the  contact  of  powder  and  flame  with  John's 
face,  etc.,  etc., — which  concurrence  of  conditions  actual- 
ly constituted  the  effect,  yet,  this  concurrence  having 
as  a  matter  of  fact  been  brought  about  by  the  pointing 
of  the  gun  at  John's  face  by  James  (among  other  con- 
ditions precedent),  and  by  the  previous  intention  on 
James's  part  to  startle  John  by  so  aiming  a  gun  at  him, 
etc.,  the  actual  particular  historical  event  in  question 
would  not  have  occurred,  would  not  have  been  the 
event  that  it  was  (although  of  course  a  similar  event 
might  have  been  brought  about  in  a  different  way), 


72  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

had  not  these  particular  previous  events  taken  place. 
And  since  the  actual  event  under  discussion  would  not 
have  happened  without  these  previous  events,  these 
previous  events  do  in  fact  bear  a  causal  relation  to  it. 
Hence  the  intention  of  James,  the  pointing  of  the  gun, 
etc.,  though  not  proximate  causes,  yet  enter  into  the 
chain  of  cause  and  effect  as  true,  although  slightly 
remote,  causal  elements. 

It  would  seem  then  from  this  discussion,  that  while 
from  what  may  be  designated  as  the  standpoint  of 
proximate  causation,  or  actual  efficiency,  only  the  con- 
currence of  conditions  existing  at  the  moment  the  effect 
comes  into  existence  constitute  its  cause  (for  it  is  these 
as  they  stand,  regardless  of  how  they  were  brought 
about,  out  of  which  the  effect  is  constituted),  yet  from 
what  may  be  designated  as  the  historical  point  of  view, 
i.  e.  in  so  far  as  the  effect  in  question  is  an  event  in 
time,  all  that  actually  led  to  the  conditions  that  do  hi 
fact  constitute  the  effect  in  question,  stand  in  a  causal 
relation  to  it.  The  reason  that  this  latter  point  of  view 
is  commonly  disregarded  (even  hi  scientific  discussion) 
for  that  of  proximate  or  immediate  causation,  is  that  it 
leads  so  far  as  to  be  practically  unmanageable  for 
ordinary  purposes.  A  moment's  reflection  shows  us 
that  the  chain  of  causation  thus  presented  is  an  endless 
chain.  To  follow  it  logically  is  to  go  back  to  the  be- 
ginning of  time,  if  time  have  a  beginning;  and  spacially 
it  would  carry  us  to  the  boundaries  of  the  Universe, 
if  the  Universe  had  limits.  If  then  we  regard  the  Uni- 
verse as  infinite  (and  if  by  the  Universe  we  mean  the 
totality  of  existence  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  possibly 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION         73 

regard  it  as  finite;  for  to  suppose  something  beyond, 
outside  of  all  that  is,  is  a  contradiction  in  terms),  we 
are  logically  led  to  regard  causation  as  infinite.  That 
the  chain  of  causation  reaches  into  infinity  from  the 
standpoint  of  time,  I  have  perhaps  already  sufficiently 
indicated:  each  event  in  history  happens  as  it  does 
because  of  the  existing  conditions,  which  are  them- 
selves the  result  of  previous  conditions,  and  these  of 
still  earlier  ones,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  That  the 
chain  of  cause  and  effect  likewise  reaches  into  infinity  in 
space  may  perhaps  be  suggested  by  several  finite  illus- 
trations. If  you  stick  your  finger  into  a  globe  of  slight 
elasticity  and  of  moderate  size,  you  may  be  actually 
able  to  perceive  by  the  senses  that  you  have  affected 
every  part  of  the  body.  The  perfectly  spherical  form 
is  destroyed,  not  only  by  the  change  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  your  finger,  but  by  a  change  through- 
out the  substance;  you  may  be  able  to  detect  by  vision 
alone  a  slight  protuberance  at  the  most  distant  point 
of  the  globe,  the  point  antipodal  to  that  at  which  your 
finger  is  placed,  which  protuberance  must  prevent  that 
half  of  the  surface  of  the  globe  of  which  it  is  the  centre 
from  having  a  perfectly  hemispherical  outline.  To 
take  another  illustration,  we  have  learned  that  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  law  of  gravity  the  apple  and  you  and 
I  are  attracted  to  the  surface  and  toward  the  centre  of 
the  earth,  and  that  similarly  the  moon  is  attracted 
toward  the  earth,  the  earth  toward  the  sun,  etc.  We 
must  not,  however,  forget  that  this  is  but  half  of  the 
truth.  It  is  equally  true  that  the  earth  attracts  the 
sun,  and  the  moon  the  earth,  and  that  even  the" apple 


74  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

exerts  an  attractive  force,  not  only  upon  the  body  of 
the  earth,  but  upon  the  sun  and  upon  the  most  distant 
star  in  the  Universe.  It  is  true  that  the  attractive 
power  which  a  tiny  apple  exerts  upon  a  star  of  the  first 
magnitude  millions  of  millions  of  miles  distant  from  it 
may  be  so  immeasurably  minute  as  to  be  quite  negli- 
gable  for  most  scientific,  as  well  as  for  practical,  pur- 
poses. So  is  the  disturbance  of  the  water  on  the  shore 
of  the  antarctic  continent  that  is  caused  by  dropping 
a  pebble  into  the  middle  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  But 
although  the  tendency  to  produce  ripples  which  in  the 
form  of  an  ever-expanding  ring  shall  extend  to  the 
boundaries  of  the  surface  of  any  liquid  into  which  a 
body  is  dropped,  may  be  counteracted  by  any  one  of  a 
thousand  other  disturbances  of  the  liquid,  and,  in  view 
of  the  smallness  of  the  object  dropped  into  the  liquid, 
may  be  so  weak  that  under  the  most  favorable  condi- 
tions possible  it  would  have  been  imperceptible  a  few 
feet  from  the  point  at  which  the  object  was  dropped, 
yet  if  the  laws  of  physics  are  valid,  if  the  falling  of  a 
mountain  into  the  calmest  inland  lake  would  cause  the 
slightest  disturbance  of  its  surface  an  inch  beyond  that 
part  of  the  water  which  the  falling  mass  should  actually 
strike,  we  know  that,  however  immeasureably  small 
it  may  be,  the  gentle  dropping  of  a  tiny  shell  into  the 
vastest  and  stormiest  of  seas  must  produce  some  effect 
throughout  the  vast  ocean,  even  to  the  most  distant 
shores.  We  must  not  forget  that  though  anything  be 
immeasureably  small  it  nevertheless  exists,  and  that 
to  counterbalance  a  force  is  not  to  annihilate  it.  The 
least  amount  of  energy  exerted  anywhere  tends  to  reach 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION        75 

through  the  Universe;  and  if  I  am  not  made  uncomfort- 
able by  the  disturbance  of  the  surface  of  the  earth  pro- 
duced by  the  crawling  over  it  of  an  insect  at  the  anti- 
podes, it  is  not  because  the  impact  of  its  tiny  feet  upon 
the  grain  of  earth  upon  which  it  steps  does  not  produce 
a  disturbance  which  is  communicated  to  the  next  grain 
and  to  the  circumambient  air  and  so  on  to  all  the  solids 
and  liquids  and  gases  in  the  Universe,  but  only  because, 
on  the  one  hand,  millions  of  other  impulses  from  other 
sources  are  crossing  the  path  of  that  set  in  motion  by 
our  insect's  footfall,  and  counteracting  it,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  my  senses  are  not  delicate  enough  to  per- 
ceive the  disturbance  of  the  earth  produced  by  my 
tiny  fellow  being's  promenade,  even  if  the  impulse 
should  come  directly  to  me  without  obstruction  or 
counteraction.  As  already  said,  the  exertion  of  energy 
anywhere  produces  or  tends  to  produce  an  effect  every- 
where; it  is  as  though  the  Universe  were  a  vast  drum- 
head, the  whole  of  which  must  be  affected  by  the  slight- 
est depression  of  any  part,  or  as  though  it  were  a  vast 
body  of  liquid,  the  dropping  of  a  grain  of  sand  into 
which  must  produce  waves  of  motion  throughout  its 
whole  extent.  In  other  words,  given  the  indestructibility 
of  energy  and  the  continuity  of  space  and  time,  and  you 
have  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect. 

The  practical  importance  of  the  illustrations  I  have 
used  to  bring  out  this  truth  will  perhaps  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  they  point  to  the  erroneousness  of  the  general 
habit  of  conceiving  of  causality  under  the  analogy  of  a 
straight  line  in  which  successive  points,  A,  B,  C,  D,  E, 
etc.,  represent  links  in  the  chain  of  cause  and  effect, — 


76 


B  being  the  effect  of  A  and  the  cause  of  C,  which  is 
itself  the  cause  of  D,  of  which  E  is  the  effect,  etc.  I 
would  suggest  that  we  should  rather  accustom  our- 
selves to  think  of  causality  under  the  analogy  of  a 
spherical  surface,  which,  having  neither  beginning  nor 
end,  has  no  absolute  centre,  but  any  point  upon  .which 
may  be  assumed  as  a  centre, — i.  e.,  either  as  effect, 
since,  being  connected  by  continuous  lines  with  every 
other  point  upon  the  surface  of  the  sphere,  it  may  be 
regarded  as  the  point  toward  which  they  all  converge; 
or  as  cause,  inasmuch  as,  being  connected  by  continuous 
lines  with  every  other  point  upon  the  surface  of  the 
sphere,  it  may  be  considered  as  the  centre  of  radiation 
from  which  they  all  converge.  This,  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen,  corresponds  to  the  fact  in  reference  to  modi- 
fications of  a  spherical  surface:  a  disturbance  at  any 
point  of  such  a  surface  constituting  a  centre  of  radiation 
from  which  every  other  point  on  the  surface  must  re- 
ceive a  more  or  less  disturbing  impulse;  and  the  con- 
verse of  course  being  equally  true,  the  modification  at 
any  given  point  being  conceivable  as  the  effect  of  the 
modification  of  the  whole,  since  each  point  is  a  centre 
of  convergence  for  continuous  lines  from  every  other 
point  upon  the  surface. 

I  hope  that  this  analogy  may  help  to  make  clear  the 
fundamental  truth  that  (inasmuch  as  the  only  reason- 
able hypothesis  is,  that  all  that  exists  constitutes  a 
Universe,  i.  e.,  a  connected  whole)  no  occurrence  can 
take  place  in  any  region  of  the  Universe  without  affect- 
ing in  some  measure  everything  else  that  exists  in  the 
Universe;  the  obverse  of  which  truth  is  that  no  pheno- 


THE  NATURE  OF  EXPLANATION        77 

menon  can  occur  in  any  part  of  the  Universe  except  in 
connection  with  i.  e.  as  a  part  of,  a  modification  of  the 
whole.  This  means  that  every  occurrence  has  some 
measure  of  direct  or  indirect  causal  relation  to  every- 
thing else  that  is  either  contemporaneous  with  or  sub- 
sequent to  it,  and  is  at  the  same  time  in  some  measure 
an  effect  of  everything  else  that  is  either  contemporan- 
eous with  or  prior  to  it.  Everything  that  exists  in  the 
present  stands  in  the  double  relation  of  a  partial  cause 
and  a  partial  effect  of  everything  else  that  now  exists, 
while  it  is  an  effect  of  everything  that  has  ever  existed 
hi  the  past  and  a  part  of  the  cause  of  everything  that 
will  ever  take  place  in  the  future.  It  takes  everything 
to  account  for  anything;  nothing  less  than  the  Universal 
Whole  may  be  posited  as  the  true  and  COMPLETE  cause  of 
the  slightest  conceivable  occurrence.  The  underlying 
meaning  of  cause  and  effect  is  not  that  which  is  indi- 
cated by  the  term  "proximate  cause,"  nor  is  it  that 
which  the  theologian  has  in  mind  when  he  speaks  of  a 
"first  cause" — it  is  neither  creation  nor  succession, 
but  concomitant  variation.  To  look  for  causes  and  to 
trace  effects  is  to  investigate  responsive,  or  correspond- 
ing, changes  in  the  great  whole  of  which  we  ourselves 
and  all  else  that  is  are  parts, — a  fact  which  points 
back  to  the  first  truth  that  I  endeavored  to  bring  to 
clear  consciousness  in  this  essay,  that  explanation  does 
not  consist  in  naming  a  creative  first  cause,  but  in 
showing  the  relations  of  the  thing  to  be  explained, 
its  relations  to  other  parts  of  the  Universe  and  the 
relations  of  its  various  parts  to  one  another. 


IV 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 


This  world's  no  blot  for  us, 

Nor  blank;  it  means  intensely  and  means  good: 

To  find  its  meaning  is  my  meat  and  drink. 

ROBEBT  BROWNING 


ALL  the  world's  thinkers  that  have  ever  seriously 
tried  to  understand  the  wonderful  world  of  which  we 
Evil  u  are  a  part,  have  had  to  ponder  over  the 

imperfection,  problem  of  evil;  and  the  thought  expended 
upon  this  subject  has  not  been  without  result.  With 
more  or  less  clearness  it  is  beginning  to  be  perceived 
that  evil  is  not  a  positive  malignant  force  (as  seems 
at  one  time  to  have  been  believed),  but  that  it  is  merely 
negative, — that  evil  is  but  another  aspect  of  imper- 
fection. 

This  is  a  truth  so  simple  that  it  has  gained  wide 
acceptance;  and  yet  the  relation  of  this  truth  to  others, 
its  many  important  corollaries,  its  bearing  upon  the 
conduct  of  life,  upon  the  ethical  ideas  that  men 
should  set  before  themselves  and  the  practical  ends 
for  which  they  should  work,  are  generally  so  little  con- 
sidered that  it  may  well  be  worth  while  to  dwell  upon 
this  truth  at  some  length;  and  I  am  the  more  strongly 
impelled  to  invite  the  attention  of  others  to  the  implica- 
tions contained  in  this  interpretation  of  evil,  because 

78 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    EVIL  79 

their  consideration  has  done  so  much  to  make  my  own 
life  happier  and  more  serene, — going  far  toward  ban- 
ishing hate  from  my  life,  widening  my  sympathies,  and 
giving  me  the  patience  in  the  presence  of  individual 
evils  that  comes  from  the  recognition  of  their  tempor- 
ary necessity  and  confidence  in  their  ultimate  disap- 
pearance. 

The  recognition  of  evil  as  incidental  to  imperfection, 
in  the  sense  of  incompleteness,  means,  for  one  thing, 

that  notwithstanding  the  potential  loveli- 
Man  suffers  ness  an(l  actual  beauty  of  the  world,  life 
hfsU imperfect0'  nas  so  much  of  ugluiess,  physical  and 
thePronditions  moral,  not  because  of  man's  rebellion 
cause'oTdivfne  against  and  disobedience  to  God,  as  our 
disfavor.  religious  teachers  for  the  last  two  or  three 

thousand  years  have  taught  us, — not  be- 
cause of  the  wrath  (just  or  unjust)  of  superhuman  beings 
against  man,  as  has  been  taught  by  religious  teachers 
of  all  races  from  the  earliest  tunes, — but  simply  because 
of  our  incomplete  development,  and  especially  because 
of  our  backwardness  in  bringing  the  knowledge  we  have 
to  bear  upon  human  conduct. 

I  sometimes  think  that  he  who  could  convince  his 
fellows  of  this  simple  truth  would  deserve  to  rank  among 

the  world's  greatest  benefactors.     We  have 

Only  when  we  °     .  .  «TTn     A» 

understand  the    a  number  of  wise  sayuigs  such  as,     What  s 

source  of  evil  .     .  „         . 

can  we  do  much  well  begun  is  half  done,  A  wrong  con- 
to  overcome  it.  ,1.11.1  j  ,,  l 

fessed  is  half  redressed,  etc.,  more  or  less 
directly  pointing  to  the  truth  that  when  we  have  looked 
any  difficulty  fairly  in  the  face  we  have  gone  halfway 
toward  overcoming  it.  When  the  physician  has  cor- 


80  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

rectly  diagnosed  his  case  he  is  on  the  right  road  toward 
effecting  a  cure,  and  only  then!  Until  he  knows  what 
the  evil  is  that  he  must  meet,  all  his  science,  all  his 
skill,  are  unavailing,  save  at  the  utmost  to  afford  some 
slight  alleviation  of  the  patient's  sufferings,  while  the 
disease  itself  continues  its  destructive  ravages. 

Such  temporary  alleviation  of  the  world's  evil,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  all  that  the  world's  physicians  have  so 
far  effected.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  condition  of 
human  life  in  the  world  is  no  better  today  than  it  was 
aeons  ago.  No;  just  as  when  physical  disease  attacks  a 
previously  healthy  human  body  and  is  blunderingly 
treated  by  patient  and  physician,  the  disease  may 
run  its  course  without  a  fatal  termination,  and  the  vix 
medicatrix  natures — the  recuperative  power  of  nature — 
may  ultimately  restore  the  body  to  a  fair  degree  of 
health,  so  in  the  life  of  humanity  at  large  the  vix  medi- 
catrix naturae,  the  natural  healthful  activity  of  man, 
groping  toward  the  light  almost  unconsciously  but  in 
accordance  with  a  healthy  instinct,  has  brought  about 
true  betterment.  But  I  do  mean  that  obedience  to 
the  prescriptions  of  humanity's  professed  physicians — 
the  prophets,  the  philosophers,  the  statesmen,  the 
teachers  of  mankind — has  done  too  little  toward  help- 
ing us  to  better  living.  And  this  is  true  partly,  indeed, 
because  we  ourselves  and  our  nurses — the  priests  and 
pastors,  the  political  administrators  and  pedagogues 
— have  not  followed  the  physician's  instructions  care- 
fully, and  have  again  and  again  misinterpreted  them 
and  shifted  the  emphasis  from  the  essential  to  the  acci- 
dental, but  also — and  in  larger  measure,  I  think — 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  81 

because  the  physicians  themselves  have  failed  to  diag- 
nose the  disease  correctly  and  have  given  so  imperfect 
expression  to  such  insight  as  they  have  had. 

True  as  has  been  most  of  the  religious  teaching  of 

the  world  when  poetically  considered  and  considered 

with  reference  to  the  time  and  place  of  its 

^tiorfof'the      utterance,  yet  the  tendency  of  the  priests 

utterances  Of     of  au  ages  to  convert  the  prophet's  poetic 

the  world's  great  _  .  . 

religious  and      utterance   of   spiritual   truth    into    literal 

ethical  teachers  r 

into  literal  and    dogma,  and  to  give  definite  expression  to 

dogmatic  form-         e  .  . 

uiaries,  to  be     the  reverence  and  aspirations  of  mankind 

treated  as  in-  .  r  •'.»•• 

fallible  and        by  hturgic  rules  and  formulae,  which,  im- 

final  revela-  J 

tions;  and  the    perfect  and  inadequate  to  start  with,  must 

neglect  of  sci-     f         .  . 

ence,— have  re-  inevitably    be    quite    outgrown    by    the 

tarded  man's  i    »     M  i  i  • 

conquest  of  evil,  thought  and  feeling  of  a  later  day — this 
tendency  has  brought  it  about  over  and 
over  again  that,  after  a  generation  or  two,  the  teachings 
of  the  world's  great  prophets  have  been  transformed 
into  a  heavy  burden  upon  the  human  soul,  instead  of  an 
inspiration,  a  clog  upon  human  progress  rather  than  a 
light  upon  the  path  of  humanity. 

That  this  should  be  so  causes  no  surprise  to  him  who 
has  attentively  studied  human  society.  A  church,  a 
priesthood,  or  whatever  be  the  name  for  the  organiza- 
tion that  has  especially  in  charge  the  religion  of  a  tribe, 
a  nation,  or  a  community,  is  by  its  very  nature  funda- 
mentally conservative;  it  is  controlled  by  tradition. 
It  exists  to  conserve,  to  hand  down  the  religious  teach- 
ing of  a  previous  generation;  and  however  large-hearted 
and  large  brained  individual  members  of  the  guild  may 
be,  the  inevitable  effect  of  their  vocation  upon  a  body 


82  REUGIO  DOCTORIS 

of  men  whose  chief  duty  in  life  is  to  preserve,  and  mag- 
nify the  importance  of,  the  product  of  the  past,  is  to 
make  them  unduly  conservative,  narrow,  and  incapable 
of  comprehending  the  present  and  so  adapting  their 
own  lives  and  the  lives  of  their  disciples  to  it  as  to  get 
its  fullest  blessing. 

This  is  by  no  means  true  of  ecclesiastic  organizations 
alone.  While  the  influences  may  be  somewhat  stronger 
in  the  case  of  religious  guilds,  the  tendency  toward 
ossification  is  one  against  which  all  organizations  need 
to  guard  themselves;  they  tend  to  become  wooden  and 
formal,  bound  hand  and  foot  by  tradition,  or  else,  in- 
stead of  a  means  toward  an  end,  to  become  an  end  in 
themselves  and  to  exist  for  their  own  sake,  i.  e.  for  the 
private  benefit  of  the  members.  The  political  ma- 
chines, with  their  meaningless  party  cries  and  mercen- 
ary motives,  which  are  so  rapidly  developed  out  of 
public  spirited  movements  for  the  furtherance  of  seri- 
ous reforms,  may  be  mentioned  in  illustration  of  this. 
And  anyone  who  has  observed  at  all  closely  the  tend- 
ency to  uniformity  in  the  mental  attitude  of  members 
of  the  legal  profession,  even  in  the  United  States  where 
the  lawyer  is  both  barrister  and  solicitor,  is  consulted  in 
reference  to  business  undertakings  of  all  sorts,  is 
brought  into  contact  with  men  of  every  class,  and  is 
thus  exposed  to  various  influences  and  has  a  very  wide 
experience  of  life — any  one  who  has  observed  this  ten- 
dency on  the  part  of  members  of  the  legal  guild  to  do 
their  thinking  within  certain  fixed  grooves,  must 
realize  that  the  fact  that  it  shows  itself  at  all  among  a 
body  of  men  exposed  to  such  a  variety  of  broadening 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  83 

influences  as  are  the  American  lawyers,  gives  striking 
evidence  of  the  strength  of  the  tendency  toward  non- 
progressive  fixity  of  thought  that  is  exerted  by  the 
mere  fact  of  membership  hi  a  body  committed  to  the 
conservation  of  any  tradition. 

But  let  us  return  to  the  church.     If  we  would  esti- 
mate aright  the  value  of  the  Christian  church  in  the 
twentieth  century,  I  think  we  should  first 

ChristiAU 

church  of  un-    frankly    recognize    that    so    much    of    its 

told  value  for  . 

inspiration  to     doctruie  as  has  to  do  with  miracles  has 

noble  living  but   ...  •in  i 

weak  as  a  di-  little  power  over  our  middle  and  upper 
forthecon:  classes  i.  e.  over  those  who  have  received 
a  fairly  broad  education.  Yet,  though 
this  be  granted,  it  remains  true  that  the  moral  worth 
of  the  church  to  civilized  society  to-day  is  inestimably 
great.  For  it  is  the  one  great  influence  that  still 
keeps  before  us,  with  our  myriad  of  special  interests, 
the  truth  that,  not  public  applause  nor  riches  nor  power 
nor  railroad  building  nor  shoemaking  nor  the  uses  of 
the  ablative  case  nor  painting  nor  music  nor  geology 
nor  astronomy,  but  a  righteous — i.  e.  a  wholesome, 
manly — life  is  our  chief  concern.  And  where  the  inex- 
pressibly great  and  inspiring  thought  of  Jesus  himself, 
that  love,  a  love  that  shall  embrace  every  living  being 
with  fraternal  warmth  and  shall  reach  to  the  Soul  of 
All  that  Is,  is  the  secret  of  life, — where  this  is  not  ob- 
scured by  ecclesiastical  embroidery,  the  church  will 
continue  to  be  our  greatest  source  of  inspiration  to 
noble  living. 

But  mankind  wants  more  than  inspiration,  it  wants 
direction.     Men  must  soon  weary  of  the  eternal  cry, 


84  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

"Be  good,  be  good!"  however  earnestly  and  lovingly 
it  may  be  uttered,  if  they  are  not  shown  how  to  be  good, 
how  to  express  their  love  for  God  and  man.  Your 
heart  may  be  full  of  love  for  a  drowning  man,  but  if 
you  do  not  know  how  to  swim  and  have  not  the  presence 
of  mind  to  throw  him  a  life-belt  or  a  rope,  your  love 
serves  him  very  little.  And  the  church  has  not  taught 
us  how  to  swim.  In  the  matter  of  directing  human 
activity  to  good  purpose,  the  Christian  church  is  not 
adequate  to  the  needs  of  the  day. 

Of  all  the  teachers  of  antiquity,  Socrates  perhaps 
came  nearest  to  leading  the  world  to  right  living, 
through  his  doctrine  of  the  practical  identity  of  virtue 
and  wisdom.  But  partly  because  his  own  ignorance  of 
and  disregard  for  physical  science  led  him  to  take  ac- 
count of  ethical  science  alone,  to  the  exclusion  of  physi- 
cal science,  and  so  to  make  his  teaching  in  regard  to 
wisdom  very  one-sided  and  incomplete;  partly  because 
his  imperfect  psychology  made  it  impossible  for  him 
to  explain  his  doctrine  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  hard- 
headed  literal  objectors,  who  insisted  that  a  man  might 
know  what  was  right  and  still  not  do  it,  and  that  wis- 
dom and  virtue  were  therefore  essentially  different; 
and  in  large  part  because  his  early  disciples  and  ad- 
mirers were  unprepared  for,  and  incapable  of  a  sym- 
pathetic appreciation  of,  this  part  of  his  doctrine, — 
it  has  come  about  that  the  very  heart  of  his  teaching, 
that  which  entitles  him  to  be  called  a  great  philosopher, 
has  been  unappreciated  and  neglected,  and  his  really 
philosophical  utterances  have  been  passed  by  for  his 
poetical  ones,  with  the  natural  result  that  the  world 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  85 

soon  sank  back  into  the  dualism  and  supernaturalism 
from  which  his  wonderfully  pregnant  thought  might 
have  aroused  it. 

That  the  evil  that  exists  in  the  world  is  merely  the 
result,  or,  let  me  rather  say,  the  concomitant,  of  im- 
perfect development,  and  that  the  suffer- 
The  funda-        ing  of  mankind  is  due  to  man's  imperfect 

mental  import-        ~;  f  .  .  . 

anceof  recog-    adjustment  to  his  environment, — that  is, 

nizing  that  man  .  ••»••! 

suffers  evil        to  his  failure  to  conduct  his  life  in  harmony 

solely  because         .  •  •  • 

of  his  imperfect  with  the  general  course  of  nature,  which 

adjustment  to  . 

the  natural        failure    is    largely    due    to    an    imperfect 

conditions  of  .  •  .  i       i  c 

life.  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  nature, — is  not  so 

likely  to  be  challenged  as  untrue  as  it  is 
to  be  disregarded  as  a  platitude  having  no  practical 
significance.  Yet  the  thought  and  activity  of  a  life 
that,  measured  by  experience,  must  be  counted  a 
fairly  long  one,  has  convinced  me,  not  only  that  the 
foregoing  statement  is  true,  but  that  its  recognition 
and  appreciation  by  mankind  is  of  immense  practical 
importance. 

First  of  all,  the  recognition  of  the  truth  is  of  vast 
importance  because  of  its  effect  upon  our 

The  recognition    .  ,       .     ,        T,  .  ,  j          j 

of  this  truth       frame  of  mind.     If  it  were  understood  and 

would  do  away  .  _  „  .       , 

with  much  of  accepted  as  true,  I  am  morally  certain  that 
evil  we  suffer  the  burdens  of  life  although  hi  every  other 
greatiy°Hghten  respect  unchanged,  would  not  weigh  one 

the  burden  of     ,,.,.,  ,  ,  . 

the  objective      half  so  heavily  upon  us  as  they  do  now! 
remain,  be°u          To  those  who  have  devoted  no  especial 
attention  to  psychology  this  may  seem  an 
extraordinary  statement,  but  by  those  who  have  thought- 
fully observed  the  phenomena  of  human  consciousness, 


86  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

my  meaning  will,  I  think,  be  readily  grasped.     The  justi- 
fication for  my  contention  is,  as  I  have  just  intimated,  to 
be  found  in  the  nature  of  the  human  mind, 

a.  impersonal     and  is  two-fold.     In  the  first  place,  we  are 

evil  troubles  us  .  r 

much  less  than  so  constituted  that   impersonal  evil  does 

personal  evil.  .  . 

not  trouble  us  so  much  as  the  intentional 

b.  We  readily      .  .  . 

reconcile  our-     infliction  of  evil  upon  us;  and  in  the  sec- 

selves  to  the  ,      , 

inevitable.  ond  place,  we  readily  reconcile  ourselves  to 
anything  (however  contrary  it  may  be  to 
our  previous  desires)  as  to  which  we  are  fully  convin- 
ced that  it  was  quite  unavoidable  and  that  it  can- 
not be  altered. 

"Man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone."  He  is  a 
being  of  sentiment,  not  a  mere  vegetable;  and  how- 
ever bright  the  sun  may  shine,  however  balmy  the  air 
he  breathes  and  wholesome  the  food  he  eats,  if  he  has 
lost  the  companionship  of  someone  he  loves,  or,  having 
the  physical  companionship,  if  he  has  lost  confidence 
in,  or  the  confidence  of,  one  who  has  been  and  perhaps 
still  is  dear  to  him,  he  may  be  very  miserable. 

Probably  not  many  of  us  have  ever  clearly  recog- 
nized how  heavily  upon  the  lives  of  earnest,  conscien- 
tious, religious-minded  men  and  women 
respons?b™hy  °f  nas  rested  a  something  which  may  perhaps 
l°rburdra  that  n°t  inaptly  be  designated  as  a  feeling  of 
JwtsUbTreasoUn  responsibility  for  God  (!),  and  how  much 
of  ^usttfytnridi  °f  tne  sadness  and  heaviness  of  life  is  due 
to  this  unrecognized  burden. 


deny°nTthhe7urs!      That  the  universe  itself  and  the  laws  in 

nessao°our°God.  accordance  with   which   it   must  develop 

are  the  creation  of  the  will  of  a  personal 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  87 

being,  capable  of  love  toward,  if  not  also  of  hatred  for, 
his  human  creatures, — is  still  generally  accepted,  with 
more  or  less  distinct  consciousness,  not  alone  by  pro- 
fessed Christians  but  also  by  non-Christian  theists. 
And  furthermore,  whether  or  not  we  be  willing  to 
admit  it,  there  are  for  most  of  us,  if  not  for  all,  moments 
when  we  cannot  quite  banish  from  our  minds  a  sus- 
picion, let  me  say,  that  if  Smith  had  been  able  to  create 
conscious  beings,  and  had  done  so  for  his  own  pleasure 
and  satisfaction,  and  had  subjected  them  to  such  a  lot 
as  that  to  which  it  appears  God  has  subjected  some  of 
his  creatures,  we  should  not  look  upon  Smith's  conduct 
with  approval. 

Some  of  those  who  have  faced  this  consciousness 
have  revolted  from  their  traditional  faith,  and  have 
said,  either  there  is  no  personal  creator  of  the  world,  or 
else  the  being  that,  having  a  will  and  affections,  has 
formed  the  world,  is  not,  as  asserted,  cannot  be,  at 
once  all-loving,  all-powerful  and  all-good.  At  the 
other  extreme  stand  those  who,  shrinking  hi  horror 
from  this  suspicion  that  that  for  which  they  are  ex- 
pected to  give  praise  and  glory  to  God  would  in  another 
being  seem  unrighteous,  treat  the  suspicion  as  a  sug- 
gestion of  the  Devil,  and  will  trample  under  foot 
reason, — with  which,  according  to  their  theory,  God 
or  the  Devil  with  God's  permission  has  endowed  them, 
rather  than  abate  a  tittle  of  their  traditional  faith. 
More  interesting,  perhaps,  than  either  of  these  ex- 
treme classes,  is  that  great  intermediate  one,  which 
feels  that,  if  all  is  of  God,  then  reason  must  have  been 
given  us  for  guidance,  not  as  a  snare  and  deception; 


88  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

and  that  we  can  only  worship  God  truly  when  we 
worship  him  with  our  whole  being,  cultivating  to  the 
utmost  all  the  talents  he  has  given  us,  and  living,  alike 
with  body,  mind,  and  soul,  a  life  that  shall  do  God 
honor.  The  thought,  the  hope,  the  faith  which  they 
have  received  as  a  blessed  inheritance  from  the  fathers, 
that  underlying  all  that  is  are  the  everlasting  arms  of 
an  all-powerful,  all-just  and  loving  Father,  who  watches 
over  the  world  he  has  made  and  doeth  all  things  well, 
— this  faith  is  for  this  class,  in  and  for  itself,  over  and 
above  its  traditional  claims  upon  their  allegiance,  too 
precious  to  surrender,  so  long  as  its  possibility  is  not 
absolutely  precluded  by  reason. 

To  the  members  of  this  fundamentally  religious, 
not  bigoted,  but  truly  conservative  class  of  thinking 
and  loving  men  and  women,  the  occasional  suspicion 
of  which  I  have  spoken  is  a  burden  of  varying  weight. 
Upon  the  hearts  of  some,  the  less  elastic  and  less  san- 
guine, it  rests  heavily  most  of  the  time,  and  its  shadow 
is  always  upon  them;  for  others  the  ever-abiding,  blind 
perhaps,  but  strong  and  loving  faith  in  the  all-em- 
bracing goodness  of  God,  is  a  perennial  spring  of  hope- 
fulness and  joy  which  soon  banishes  the  troublesome 
spectre,  even  though  the  latter  may  present  itself  for 
a  moment  now  and  then;  while  for  all,  even  for  those 
whose  hopes  and  desires  would  never  be  able  to  over- 
come the  verdict  of  their  reason,  there  is  still  always  the 
refuge,  that  although  we  may  not  be  able  to  reconcile 
what  we  see  of  the  conduct  and  the  government  of  the 
world  to  our  best  ideas  of  justice  and  of  love,  yet  "now 
we  see  darkly,"  we  see  but  in  part,  our  minds  are 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  89 

finite,  and  only  if  we  saw  and  understood  all  that  is — 
in  other  words,  if  our  minds  had  infinite  power — would 
we  be  in  a  position  to  judge;  if  we  understood  the  uni- 
verse of  God  more  perfectly,  that  of  which  we  are  now 
most  inclined  to  disapprove  might  seem  to  us  most 
beautiful  and  good. 

But  however  it  may  be  met, — and,  as  I  have  sug- 
gested, there  are  various  more  or  less  radical  and  more 
or  less  satisfactory  ways  of  meeting  it, — we  must,  I 
think,  admit  that  more  or  less  frequently  and  with 
more  or  less  clearness  and  impressiveness,  according 
to  circumstances,  this  painful  thought  does  come  to 
the  minds  of  all  religious-minded  men  and  women 
(and  we  are  all  more  or  less  religious-minded);  and  it 
is  a  burden  upon  the  hearts  of  all  theists  to  whom  it 
comes,  whether  its  effect  be  to  make  them  wrathful 
and  rebellious,  or  merely  to  prevent  them  from  feeling 
that  absolute  confidence  in  the  perfection  of  God  which 
they  so  greatly  desire  to  feel,  or  to  cause  them  sorrow 
that  they  are  thereby  prevented  from  justifying  satis- 
factorily to  their  fellow  men  the  ways  of  God.  For, 
however  much  we  may  say  that  God's  ways  are  not 
our  ways  and  that  we  should  not  presume  to  think  of 
justifying  God,  the  psychological  fact  remains  that 
every  theist  does  feel  the  responsibility  of  trying  to 
justify,  either  to  himself  or  to  others  or  to  both,  God's 
dealings  with  men;  and  he  is  likely  to  feel  the  necessity 
the  more  intensely,  the  higher  his  own  life  is. 

There  is  one  particular  moral  evil  arising  from  the 
pressure  upon  man's  life  of  this  burden  of  responsibility 
for  God,  which  is  too  serious  to  be  passed  over  with- 


90  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

out  special  mention.  It  is  essentially  the  same  evil 
as  that  which  so  frequently  arises  from  human  hero- 
The  necessity  worship, — so  tampering  with  our  ethical 
°*  Justifying  standards  that  they  shall  not  condemn  our 

that  which  one 

believes  God  to   hero.    When  we  feel  that  it   is  desirable 

have  done 

sometimes         to  justify  that   of  which  the  undoctored 

makes  men  in-  '     . 

teiiectuaiiy        conscience   of  civuized  man  does  not  ap- 

dishonest  and 

untrue  to  their    prove,  the  temptation  to  which  too  many 

own  ethical  m-       .  .   ,  ,   . 

sight  and  moral  of  us  yield  is  to  stretch  the  conscience  and 

instincts.  .  . 

revise  the  ethical  standard  to  fit  the  case 
in  hand;  and  although  this  be  done  with  the  most 
devout  intention  and  under  pressure  of  a  reverent  sense 
of  religious  obligation  to  find  that  good  which  we  be- 
lieve our  father  and  creator,  our  God,  has  done,  yet  the 
inevitable  result  is  to  obscure  our  judgment  in  regard 
to  right  and  wrong  and  lower  our  ethical  standard, 
even  in  those  human  matters  in  which  the  agency  of 
God  is  not  directly  in  question. 

The  feeling  of  responsibility  for  God,  then,  is  one  of 
the  things  that  tends  to  intensify  the  pain  men  suffer 
from  the  evil  in  the  world,  and  even  to  increase  the 
objective  evil.  But  even  did  this  feeling  not  exist 
it  would  still  be  true  that  for  most  men  under  most 
circumstances  (not  to  make  our  statement  too  sweeping) 
the  belief  that  evil  which  befalls  him  has  been  directed 
against  him  by  the  free  will  of  some  other  being  or 
beings  would  make  his  pain  thereunder  greater.  Even 
supposing  that  he  fully  recognizes  that  the  being  who 
has  inflicted  the  evil  upon  him — whether  that  being  be 
God,  the  magistracy  of  the  state,  an  earthly  parent, 
or  some  private  individual — was  perfectly  justified 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  91 

in  thus  punishing  him,  that  feeling  will  cany  with  it  a 
pang  of  conscience,  a  sorrow  that  he  has  deserved  this 
punishment,  which  is  something  additional  to  the  pain 
which  the  punishment  itself,  as  an  objective  event, 
inflicts.  But  in  most  cases  that  just  presented  is  not 
the  frame  of  mind  of  the  person  who  suffers  evil.  He 
may,  if  his  humility  be  great,  feel  that,  even  though  he 
cannot  tell  why  he  is  so  dealt  with,  he  must  have  com- 
mitted some  offence  so  grave  as  to  deserve  this  evil  as 
a  retribution;  and  so  he  is  made  additionally  miserable 
by  the  thought  that  he  has  done  something,  though  he 
knows  not  what,  to  deserve  evil.  But  oftener,  general- 
ly, the  man  who  suffers  evil  which  he  believes  to  have 
been  willed  by  some  other  being,  feels  that  some  one  is 
treating  him  harshly;  and  resentment  therefor  greatly 
increases  the  mental  disturbance  which  the  evil  causes 
him. 

I  am  not  seeking  to  justify  the  frame  of  mind  just 
referred  to,  but  merely  to  present  it  as  a  psychological 
fact.     We  are  altogether  too  much  inclined 
to  look  for  personal  causes  at  all  times,  and 

to  assume  per-  ,.  ,  .    . 

sonai  causation,  our  discontent  at  any  untoward  event  is 
greatly  increased  by  the  assumption  that 
John  or  Eliza  (or,  at  any  rate,  God)*  is  responsible 
therefor;  for  then  we  become  discontented,  not  alone 
with  the  objective  evil  itself,  but  also  with  John  or 

*There  are,  I  believe,  a  few  truly  religious  souls  for  whom  evil  is  in 
a  measure  mitigated  by  the  thought  that  it  comes  from  God,  the 
father  of  goodness  and  love,  and  hence  must  be  a  blessing  in  disguise. 
But,  unfortunately,  there  are  not  many  who  feel  so.  This  view  is 
similar  in  its  results  to  that  (as  it  seems  to  me)  more  scientific  view 
which  regards  the  evil  in  the  world  as  the  world's  growing  pains,  so  to 


92  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

Eliza  or  at  least  with  the  relation  between  John  or 
Eliza  (or  God)  and  ourselves.  An  attentive  observer 
of  human  nature  can  hardly  have  failed  to  notice  that 
if  any  little  thing  goes  wrong  in  the  house,  the  shop, 
the  playground,  the  ship  of  state,  or  anywhere  else, 
the  first  thought  of  four  persons  out  of  five  will  be  to 
fix  the  responsibility  therefor  upon  some  individual; 
although  in  fact  it  may  be  the  veriest  chance  so  far  as 
individual  human  agency  is  concerned,  or  may  be  the 
joint  result  of  the  activity  of  so  many  that  it  is  highly 
unreasonable  to  hold  any  one  individual  responsible 
for  it.  It  is  an  unlovely,  indeed  a  very  disagreeable 
trait,  but  it  is  one  very  generally  found  in  human  nature, 
that  thus  leads  one  to  find  fault  with  some  individual 
whenever  anything  happens  to  displease  one,  and  that 
leads  us  to  make  a  mountain  of  a  molehill  if  we  think 
we  can  fix  the  responsibility  upon  some  person,  when 
we  would  pass  the  event  with  hardly  a  moment's 
vexation  if  there  were  no  possibility  of  holding  any 
person  responsible  or  no  possibility  of  holding  any  one 
but  ourselves  responsible.  This  disposition  shows  it- 
self in  the  child,  who  will  set  up  a  lusty  roar  if  he  falls 
down  when  some  one  is  pursuing  him  or  if  he  bumps 
his  head  against  another  child's,  when  he  would  take 
very  quietly  an  injury  twice  as  severe  for  which  there 
was  no  possibility  of  holding  any  one  but  himself 

speak,  and  as  such  ultimately  beneficent  (although  not  benevolent) 
for  the  great  whole  of  which  we  are  a  part, — just  as  the  obstruction 
to  the  direct  course  of  a  bullet  which  is  made  by  the  rifling  of  a  gun, 
so  leads  it  to  the  outlet  that  it  finally  emerges  with  a  power  and 
effectiveness  that  have  been  increased  by  the  tortuous  path  it  has 
been  compelled  to  take. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  93 

responsible.  I  recall  an  instance  of  this  in  a  four-year- 
old  who  was  a  great  cry-baby  when  anything  befell 
him  for  which  he  could  contrive  to  suggest  that  his 
nurse  or  someone  else  was  in  part  responsible;  but  who 
took  without  a  whimper  a  very  severe  bump  on  the 
head  when  he  fell  head-first  from  a  table  upon  which 
he  had  been  forbidden  to  climb.  This  disposition  also 
exhibits  itself  in  the  serene,  matter-of-fact  acceptance 
of  the  mischance  when  the  housewife  herself  happens 
to  let  a  plate  fall,  and  in  the  great  distress  she  evinces 
when  the  maid  (carelessly,  of  course)  drops  one. 

The  reason  for  this  tendency  to  fix  the  responsibility 
for  every  mischance  upon  some  personal  agency,  is  an 
interesting  psychological  question.  I  am  inclined  to 
believe  that,  while  it  is  today  in  large  measure  merely 
a  habit,  one  might  say  a  tradition,  among  thoughtless 
people,  it  arose  very  largely  indeed  from  the  general 
tendency  among  uncivilized  men  to  look  for  personal 
causes  for  all  events,  and  that  it  owes  its  continuance 
to  the  common  belief  that  ultimately  everything  has 
a  personal  cause, — to  wit,  God's  will.  The  point  of 
view  which  is  almost  unconsciously  taken  seems  to  be 
about  as  follows:  if  I  cannot  fix  the  responsibility  for 
this  evil  upon  John  or  Henry  or  Eliza, — upon  some 
individual  or  individuals  other  than  myself, — then  I 
must  allow  that  I  am  myself,  partly  at  least,  responsi- 
ble for  it;  if  not  directly,  then  at  least  indirectly,  hi  so 
far  that  it  is  a  judgment  upon  me  for  my  past  sins;  so, 
in  order  to  prevent  others  from  holding  me  in  any  way 
responsible,  I  must  hasten  to  fix  the  responsibility  upon 
some  one  else.  It  seems  very  probable  that  the  Devil 


94  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

owed  his  influential  position  in  mediaeval  society  to 
this  habit  of  mind  on  the  part  of  our  ancestors. 

The  foregoing  discussion  has  doubtless  made  clear 
what  I  mean  by  stating  as  a  psychological  fact  that  we 
are  more  pained  by  untoward  events  for  which  we  feel 
that  some  person  is  responsible  than  by  impersonal 
evil.  To  represent  the  truth  in  one  simple  little  illus- 
tration; if  we  receive  a  blow  from  some  object  acci- 
dentally falling  upon  us,  our  sense  of  injury  is  slight, 
our  mental  distress  is  measured  by  the  extent  of  the 
physical  discomfort  resulting  therefrom;  but  if  the 
blow  has  been  deliberately  given  us  by  someone,  our 
sense  of  injury,  our  mental  perturbation,  is  great,  and 
may  last  for  days  and  weeks,  even  for  years,  after  the 
direct  physical  effects  of  the  blow  have  entirely  disap- 
peared. 

There  remains  to  be  considered,  however,  another, 
different,  albeit  kindred,  reason  why  the  evil  that 
exists  in  the  world  would  cause  us  less 
tohre«Mici?eS8  suffering,  if  instead  of  regarding  it  as 
nece3ss?teyfas°af-  caused  or  permitted  by  an  omnipotent, 
isthfbeiiefk0"  personal  God,  who  could  withhold  it  if  he 
would,  we  recognize  it  as  the  necessary 
consequence  of  the  imperfect  adaptation  of  the  various 
parts  of  the  Universe  to  one  another,  resulting  from  the 
incomplete  state  of  the  evolution  of  the  world-energy 
(which,  so  far  as  we  have  certain  knowledge,  has  only 
developed  into  consciousness  and  reason  in  the  lives  of 
those  higher  animals  of  which  man  is  incomparably 
the  highest);  and  that  reason  is  found  in  the  further 
psychological  fact  that  man  is  ever  ready  to  reconcile 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  95 

himself  to  that  of  the  inevitable  necessity  of  which  he 
is  convinced.  Let  one  be  convinced  that  a  thing  is 
absolutely  inevitable  and  unchangeable,  and  his  readi- 
ness and  ability  to  reconcile  and  adapt  himself  to  it  is 
surprisingly  great.  Our  students  of  psychology  have 
not  given  to  this  interesting  phenomenon  of  human 
consciousness  the  attention  that  it  deserves,  and  we  do 
not  know  how  far  it  may  go.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  the  only  limitation  the  principle  has  is  found  in 
man's  physical  endurance;  and  that  however  destruc- 
tive of  that  which  had  previously  contributed  to  his 
joy  and  comfort,  contrary  to  his  previous  desires,  and 
subversive  of  his  previous  plans  and  purposes  hi  life, 
anything  that  befalls  one  may  be,  one  can  nevertheless, 
within  the  limits  of  his  physical  power  and  endurance, 
and  will  reconcile  himself  thereto  with  unaffected 
serenity  of  mind,  if  only  he  be  convinced,  first,  that  it 
was  absolutely  necessary,  could  not  possibly  have  been 
avoided,  and,  secondly,  that  it  cannot  possibly  be  un- 
done. But  even  if  this  should  prove  to  be  somewhat 
too  strong  a  statement  of  the  psychological  fact  in 
question,  any  observant  student  of  human  nature  must 
soon  convince  himself  that  the  principle  is  a  very  far- 
reaching  one  indeed. 

It  should  be  noted  that  while  the  facility  with  which 
man  reconciles  himself  to  the  necessary  and  inevitable 
might  be  expected  to  contribute  to  the  peace  of  mind 
and  happiness  of  theists  no  less  than  of  non-theists, 
there  are  beliefs  associated  with  theism*  that  stand  in 

*It  will  doubtless  be  understood  that  the  term  theism  is  used  in 
the  sense  of  belief  in  a  personal  God. 


96  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

the  way.  Generally  the  theist  believes  in  miraculous 
intervention  and  in  the  power  of  prayer  to  influence 
God  to  remove  evil,  and  so  it  is  not  easy  for  him  to 
recognize  that  any  event  is  absolutely  inevitable;  and 
while  it  is  true  that  the  thorough-going  predestinarian, 
who  has  no  doubt  that  what  happens  to  him  was  in- 
tended from  the  beginning  by  God  and  is  irrevocable, 
shows  something  of  the  composure  of  mind  that  the 
recognition  of  the  inevitable  gives,  yet  his  peace  of 
mind  is  disturbed  by  the  thought  of  the  fearfulness  of 
God's  ways  and  by  a  carking,  albeit  unacknowledged, 
doubt  as  to  whether  God's  dealings  with  man  are 
really  merciful  and  just,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  better 
to  say,  by  sorrow  that  God's  justice  and  mercy  are  not 
recognizably  the  same  as  justice  and  mercy  on  the  part 
of  man. 

But  supposing  that  it  should  be  freely  admitted  that 
the  weight  of  evil  would  not  press  so  heavily  upon  us, 
that  our  hearts  would  be  lighter  and  the 
ofhtheetrmthion   world  for  us  would  be  brighter,  if  we  could 
believe  that  no  evil  was  ever  intelligently 
designed,  that  no  part  of  the  evil  we  find 
in  life  has  been  planned  either  by  God  or 
by  a  Devil  or  by  a  brother  man  consciously 
an<^  intelligently  choosing    to   do   wrong 
Tuhffer  Ta'sier'to  ra*her  than  to  do  right,  but  that,  instead, 
JutrusbonTh£ld  all  that  affects  us  as  evil  arises  out  of  the 
S^from'thT  *act  tnat  we  nave  not  vet  readied  that 
themseivesevils  state  °*    development    in  which  there  is 
perfect  equilibrium  between  the  individual 
man  and  the  rest  of  nature,  that,  in  other  words,  human 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  97 

nature  (physical,  emotional  and  mental)  is  still  im- 
perfectly adapted  to  its  environment,  that  as  yet  neither 
instinct  nor  reason  nor  both  together  have  fitted  us 
for  a  life  of  perfect  harmony  with  all  that  is, — supposing 
that  we  are  convinced  that  life  would  be  happier  if  this 
were  accepted  as  true,  can  we  accept  it,  what  are  the 
reasons  for  supposing  it  to  be  true?  And  if  true,  has 
the  truth  any  value  for  us  other  than  that  just  discussed; 
in  addition  to  making  it  easier  for  us  to  endure  the 
necessary  evils  of  life,  and  doing  away  with  some  of 
their  unnecessary  incidents,  will  it  afford  us  any  help 
in  doing  away  with  the  evils  themselves?  It  seems  to 
me  that  to  both  of  these  questions  we  may  give  an 
affirmative  answer. 

That  all  physical  evils  with  which  the  agency  of 
man  has  no  direct  connection,  may  be  stated  in  terms 

of  imperfect  harmony  between  the  indi- 
Physicai  vidual  and  his  environment  will  doubtless 

be  admitted  without  question.  Indeed 
this  needs  but  to  be  understood  to  be  accepted;  it 
may  be  said  to  be  one  of  those  propositions  that 
is  true  by  definition.  Such  suffering  as  comes  from 
cold  in  winter,  heat  in  summer,  toothache,  strangula- 
tion from  falling  into  the  water,  scarlet  fever,  etc.,  are 
evidently  results  of  imperfect  adjustment  between  the 
human  system  and  its  actual  environment;  and  as 
humanity  progresses  it  generally  suffers  less  and  less 
from  these  evils.  When  civilized  man  lives  far  from 
the  equator  he  may  not  be  able  to  change  the  natural 
climate  to  suit  himself,  nor  to  change  his  sensitiveness 


98  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

to  cold  to  suit  the  natural  climate;  but  by  means  of 

suitable  shelter  and  clothing  he  produces  a  sort  of 

artificial  climate, — a  medium,  so  to  speak, 

The  so-caiied     between  raw  external  nature  and  raw  man. 

"mastery  of  -       • 

nature"  is  it-     But  in  all  such  cases,  it  is  important  to 

self,  in  the  last 

analysis,  a  nat-  remember  that,  however  "artificial"  the 

ural  phenome- 
non; it  is  no  less  means  of  overcoming  the  evils  of  nature 

a  triumph  of  .    ° 

nature  than  a     may  be,  they  are  in  the  last  analysis  also 

triumph  over  . 

nature.  natural, — man,  himself  a  part  of  nature, 

overcomes  the  possibilities  for  evil  in 
nature  by  means  of  such  a  knowledge  of  nature  as  en- 
ables him  to  counteract  one  natural  force  by  means  of 
another;  his  knowledge  of  the  properties  of  wood  and 
stone  and  other  forms  of  matter,  of  furs  and  fleeces  and 
the  textile  products  of  plants,  of  combustion,  etc.,  en- 
ables him  to  be  warm  and  comfortable  in  a  cold  climate, 
to  pass  safely  over  the  stormy  sea,  to  provide  himself 
with  a  new  set  of  teeth,  to  destroy  the  fever  bacilli,  etc. 
When,  however,  we  come  to  moral,  to  spiritual  as 
distinct  from  physical  evil,  the  truth  of  our  contention 
may  not  at  first  seem  quite  so  clear:  but  a 
little  reflection  will  show  us  that  the  state- 
ment made  above  with  reference  to  physi- 
cal evil  is  no  less  true  here.  What  is  the  difference 
between  the  malefactor  and  the  good  citizen,  between 
the  immoral  and  the  moral  man?  Is  it  not  what  the 
etymology  of  the  last  pair  of  words  implies, — that 
the  former's  conduct  of  life  is  not  in  harmony  with 
the  mores,  or  approved  customs  that  govern  the 
conduct  of  the  latter  and  of  society  at  large? 
Human  communities  have  found  that  certain  habits 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  99 

of  life  are  conducive  to  wellbeing,  because  they  keep 
the  individual  in  harmony  with  that  important  part 
of  his  immediate  environment  which  consists  of  society 
itself,  and,  largely  through  the  medium  of  society,  with 
his  larger  environment  of  external  nature;  and  the 
representative  majority  keep  in  the  main  to  these 
habits  of  life,  while  those  who  are  below  the  normal 
level  evidence  their  imperfect  social  developement  by 
their  failure  to  move  in  harmony  with  their  fellows 
along  these  lines  of  least  resistance  of  which  society  at 
large  has  come  to  avail  itself.  And  in  like  manner  the 
difference  between  the  high  and  beautiful  life  of  the 
morally  superior  man  and  the  comparatively  petty  life 
of  the  ordinary,  passably  good  citizen,  is  that,  over  and 
above  the  conventional  morality  which  society  at  large 
recognizes,  the  deeper  insight  or  more  perfect  instincts 
of  the  moral  seer,  the  "beautiful  soul,"  serve  to  adjust 
his  life  to  a  more  perfect  harmony  with  the  life  of  the 
universe  at  large  than  is  possible  for  those  who  have  not 
gotten  beyond  the  generally  accepted,  the  conventional 
morality  of  society  (which  of  necessity  always  repre- 
sents, not  the  highest  wisdom  of  today,  but  the  wisdom 
of  an  earlier,  less  perfectly  enlightened  day).  This,  of 
course,  means  that  moral  evil,  no  less  than  physical,  is 
the  concomitant  of  imperfect  development,  of  incom- 
plete adaptation  between  the  individual  and  the  rest 
of  the  cosmic  whole,  or,  more  particularly,  of  so  much 
thereof  as  constitutes  his  immediate  environment. 

Assuming  now  the  truth  of  our  proposition, — that  all 
evil  (moral  as  well  as  physical)  is  simply  the  natural 
expression  of  imperfection,  the  necessary  result  of 


100  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

incomplete  adaptation  between  the  individual  and  the 
universe  at  large,  particularly  between  the  individual 
and  that  part  of  the  universe  which  constitutes  his 
more  immediate  environment, — what  is  the  benefit 
to  mankind  that  may  be  expected  from  the  acceptance 
of  this  truth,  in  addition  to  the  benefits  already  re- 
ferred to,  arising  from  the  facts  (1)  that  impersonal 
evil  is  more  tolerable  than  that  which  we  believe  to 
have  been  intentionally  inflicted  upon  us,  and  (2)  that 
we  find  it  quite  easy  to  reconcile  ourselves  to  anything 
we  recognize  as  absolutely  inevitable? 

The  great  benefit  to  be  derived  from  a  lively  realiza- 
tion of  the  truth  of  our  proposition,  is  that  suggested 
if  we  recog-  above  when  attention  was  called  to  the 
aTto  evil,  we*  ^act  that  natural  physical  evils  are  over- 
™c^lk£ow-°r  come  by  means  of  such  a  knowledge  of 
universe  asa  nature  as  enables  man  to  avoid  the  un- 
favorable  effects  of  the  operation  of  some 
one  force  in  external  nature  by  availing 
moral  evil.  himself  of  other  forces  which  will  counter- 
act it.  Evidently,  then,  the  more  thorough  man's 
knowledge  of  nature,  the  more  perfectly  is  he  prepared 
to  meet  every  possible  physical  evil.  But  we  too 
generally  fail  to  recognize  that  the  extension  of  knowl- 
edge, as  it  lays  a  broader  and  surer  foundation  for  wis- 
dom, contributes  also  to  virtue, — that  in  proportion  as 
we  have  come  to  understand  our  own  natures  better, 
and  our  relations  to  the  rest  of  mankind  and  to  nature 
external  to  man,  in  so  far  have  our  sympathies  been 
widened,  our  spirits  exalted  and  our  moral  lives  streng- 
thened and  beautified.  The  full  recognition  of  the  truth 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  101 

of  our  proposition  then,  would,  I  believe,  so  enlarge 
and  improve  our  educational  ideals  and  so  stimulate 
us  in  the  search  for  truth  throughout  the  whole  realm 
of  existence  as  to  ensure  results  that  would  soon  do 
away  with  a  large  part  of  the  moral  no  less  than  of  the 
physical  evil  from  which  the  most  highly  civilized 
races  of  mankind  still  suffer. 

The  immense  improvements  in  physical  comfort  that 
have  already  been  effected  among  civilized  men  as  the 
progress  of  science  has  enlarged  the  bound- 
Supematuraiis-  aries  of  human  knowledge    are  so  widely 
recognized  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  argue 
the  general  proposition  that  the  extension 
°f  science  contributes  to  human  wellbeing. 

wky is  il  then  th^ a11  of  civilized  man- 

abort  kincl  is  not  eagerly  devoting  itself  to  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge — since  the  ex- 
naturai  science,  tension  of  science  is  but  another  name  for 
the  so-called  mastery  of  nature  which  en- 
ables man  to  bring  about  a  more  and  more  perfect 
adaptation  between  his  own  life  and  the  course  of 
nature  external  to  himself  and  thus  bring  happiness  to 
himself  by  the  avoidance  and  conquest  of  evil?  Why? 
Chiefly  because  of  the  wide-spread  dualistic  misinter- 
pretation of  life  in  accordance  with  which  "nature" 
and  "spirit"  are  brought  into  contrast  as  though  they 
were  the  designation  of  hostile  realms,  and  the  expres- 
sion "the  conquest  of  nature"  is  so  misunderstood  that 
men  become  blind  to  the  unquestionable  fact  that 
every  "conquest  of  nature"  is  at  the  same  time  a  con- 
quest by  nature — that  the  so-called  subjection  and 


102  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

mastery  of  nature  consists  in  nothing  else  than  the 
advancement  of  human  wellbeing  by  availing  one's 
self  of  such  natural  forces  as  may  be  adapted  to  the 
purpose  of  counteracting  the  possibility  of  evil  which 
might  come  to  man  from  other  natural  forces  if  not 
thus  counteracted.  But  according  to  the  mischievous 
dualistic  conception,  man  has  to  do  with  two  different 
worlds,  the  world  of  spirit,  of  which  he  is  a  citizen,  and 
the  material  world,  in  which  he  is  temporarily  domiciled 
but  with  which  his  spirit  is  or  should  be  at  war;  the 
latter,  the  material  world,  is  the  world  of  nature;  and 
inasmuch  as  the  natural,  or  material,  world  is  not  only 
utterly  distinct  from  but  immeasurably  inferior  to  the 
world  of  spirit,  such  an  understanding  of  the  universe 
as  may  come  from  a  study  of  natural  phenomena, 
while  it  may  be  good  enough  in  itself,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
has  yet  to  do  with  a  very  insignificant  part  of  the  life 
of  man. 

Here,  in  this  false  antithesis  between  the  natural  and 

the  spiritual,  is  the  fundamental  error  which  is  doing 

incalculable  mischief  to  mankind,  immeas- 

Psychic  and 

social  laws  of     uTably    retarding    human     progress    and 

nature  differ          ...  .  ,  „„  ., 

from  physical     distorting  our  educational  ideas.     While  a 

and  chemical  .  i  »     i  i  i 

laws  merely       growing  number  of  those  whom  we  regard 

in  that  the  for-     '  , 

mer  are  more     as  educated  men  are  coming  to  confess  the 

complex  and  .  t  ,  . 

therefore  more  truth  in  words,  only  a  very  few  indeed 

difficult  to  for-  .         *       . 

muiate  and  realize  the  meaning  of  the  words,  that  the 
spiritual  is  no  less  natural  than  the  material; 
that  nature  is  all-inclusive,  embracing  the  mental  and 
the  moral,  no  less  than  the  physical  and  material! 
The  laws  of  individual  mental  and  spiritual  develop- 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  103 

ment  and  of  social  progress  are  much  more  complex, 
it  is  true,  and  therefore  more  difficult  to  grasp,  than 
those  physical  and  biological  uniformities  in  nature 
which  have  been  clearly  recognized  and  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  designate  as  laws  of  nature;  but  the 
former  are  just  as  necessary  and  just  as  natural  as  the 
latter.  When  men  shall  recognize  this  unity  of  all  that 
is,  the  inter-relation  and  interdependence  of  all  phe- 
nomena, psychical  and  material,  they  will  make  mighty 
strides  in  the  advancement  of  human  wellbeing  (spirit- 
ual no  less  than  material)  through  the  mastery  of 
nature;  for  they  will  then  realize  the  fundamental  im- 
portance of  continually  collating  all  knowledge  and  of 
gaming  a  conception  of  nature  as  a  whole;  they  will  see 
that  for  spiritual  progress  and  moral  uplift,  as  well  as 
for  mental  growth  and  physical  comfort,  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  universe  in  all  its  aspects,  physical  and 
psychical,  is  essential. 

But  lest  this  should  sound  very  vague,  and  therefore 
almost  meaningless  so  far  as  the  problem  of  moral  evil 
is  concerned,  let  me  illustrate  what  I  have  in  mind  by 
specific  reference  to  moral  evil;  and  we  may  then, 
perhaps,  be  able  to  see  how  a  knowledge  of  nature, — 
— in  this  case  of  human  nature,  and  primarily  of  the 
human  mind, — by  enabling  us  to  understand  the 
source  of  the  evil,  would  help  us  to  prevent  its  repeti- 
tion. 

Let  us  begin  by  asking  ourselves  what  "moral  evil," 
"wrong,"  is — what  makes  it  wrong?  To  say,  as  we 
often  do,  that  it  is  the  violation  of  conscience  that  con- 
stitutes the  wrongfulness  of  conduct,  does  not  carry  us 


104  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

far;  and  yet  even  this  answer  may  help  us  to  get  a  clear 
mental  picture  of  that  which  most  of  us  are  content  to 
leave  in  the  realm  of  feeling.  Let  us  observe  first  that 
this  criterion  of  wrong,  the  violation  of  conscience, 
makes  the  matter  purely  subjective  or  personal,  not 
objective  and  general.  We  have  but  to  remember  the 
training  of  the  not  wholly  uncivilized  Spartans  to  see 
that,  if  this  conception  be  true,  theft  and  secret  violence, 
if  inflicted  upon  outsiders  or  the  subject  population, ' 
would  seem  not  to  be  wrong,  since  these  things  the 
conscience  of  the  Spartan  lad  was  trained  to  approve. 
And  indeed  the  classics  of  the  childhood  and  youth  of 
all  civilized  races, — of  our  own  Teutonic  ancestors 
(whose  Paradise  consisted  in  getting  drunk  every 
night  and  committing  manslaughter  all  day)  no  less 
than  of  the  early  Greeks  and  of  the  Jews  of  the  time  of 
the  "Judges, "—as  well  as  what  we  know  of  savage 
and  barbarous  races  of  modern  times,  show  us  that 
that  of  which  conscience  approves  or  disapproves 
varies  widely  with  changing  circumstances.  The  savage 
and  the  half-civilized  man  often  have  the  most  glowing 
sense  of  self-satisfaction  in  those  very  deeds  which  our 
civilization  finds  most  abhorrent  and  of  which  our  con- 
sciences most  disapprove.  We  know  that  there  are 
peoples*  among  whom  he  who  would  have  the  favor  of 
Heaven  and  win  the  approbation  of  his  own  conscience 
must  first  kill  a  certain  number  of  his  fellow  beings — 
it  matters  little  how  or  under  what  circumstances,  so 
they  be  not  members  of  his  own  clan.  Yet  even  though 
the  uncivilized  man  dies  happy  after  committing  some 
*  "The  head-hunters,"  for  instance. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  105 

deed  which  seems  to  us  atrociously  cruel,  in  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  has  crowned  an  honorable  life  with  a 
deed  that  will  insure  him  high  rank  in  the  world  beyond, 
we  cannot  convince  ourselves  that  what  he  has  done  is 
therefore  good, — -the  approval  of  conscience  is  not  in 
the  last  analysis  a  satisfactory  criterion  of  good  and 
evil.  It  is  true  that  we  may  be  generous  enough  to 
recognize  that  the  individual  savage  is  not  to  be  blamed 
for  what  impresses  us  as  a  veritably  devilish  deed,  since 
he  has  been  bred  to  think  such  conduct  praiseworthy; 
some  of  us  may  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  sub- 
jectively considered  the  deed  was  good,  that  it  was  right 
for  him,  although  it  would  be  very  wrong  for  us;  but 
although  it  is  true  that  there  are  men  of  feeling  who 
have  become  so  bewildered  that  they  have  given  up 
the  attempt  to  define  right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil, 
in  other  than  subjective  terms,  and  have  rashly  de- 
clared that  there  is  no  other  criterion  than  the  individual 
conscience,  and  that  therefore  it  is  right — in  the  moral 
sense  good — that  the  man  of  undeveloped  or  badly 
trained  conscience  should  do  the  thing  that  commends 
itself  to  him  as  good,  although  it  may  bring  suffering 
to  many  innocent  fellowbeings, — that  when  each  one 
does  that  which  is  good  in  his  own  sight,  all  do  well, — 
still  the  saving  common  sense  which  prevails  with  the 
great  majority  of  civilized  men  rejects  this  doctrine 
as  imperfect  and  inadequate,  if  not  fundamentally  false. 
Generally  when  we  say  that  that  is  right  which  has 
the  approval  of  conscience,  we  mean  that  it  should 
have  the  approval  of  our  conscience,  and  that  means, 
in  the  last  analysis,  my  conscience,  i.  e.  the  conscience 


106  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

of  the  individual  who  is  considering  the  deed  in  question. 
It  is  doubtless  true  that  as  regards  many  things,  or  at 
least  as  regards  a  few  matters  of  fund- 
-  amental  importance  for  practical  morality, 
an'erperi-  mv  conscience  agrees  with  your  conscience, 
i^benefldaTto*  tne  consciences  of  civilized  men  will  give 
betag.n  weU"  a  unanimous  verdict — in  so  far  there  is  a 
common  conscience  among  civilized  men. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  who  has  failed  to  observe  that, 
when  it  comes  to  particulars,  even  among  members  of 
the  same  family  circle,  and  still  more  among  those 
whose  life  experiences  have  been  widely  different,  the 
verdicts  of  conscience  are  quite  different?  The  con- 
science of  your  most  honored  friend  or  of  your  dearly 
loved  wife  may  lead  him  or  her  to  disapprove  of  that 
which  you  earnestly  regard  as  right;  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  may  approve  of  something  which  you  can- 
not but  consider  wrong.  Now  whence  comes  this 
similarity  and  this  variety — this  general  likeness  of 
moral  judgment,  yes,  and  of  moral  instinct,  among 
people  having  a  common  civilization,  together  with 
unlikeness  of  moral  instinct  and  judgment  as  between 
people  on  different  planes  of  civilization,  and  further 
unlikeness  in  many  particulars  among  people  who  in  a 
general  sense  share  the  same  high  civilization?  It  is 
significant  that  the  difference  in  moral  judgment  last 
referred  to  shows  itself  in  a  noteworthy  degree  only 
among  the  more  highly  civilized  races;  that  the  con- 
sciences of  a  dozen  individuals  taken  at  random  from  a 
savage  race  will  be  in  more  perfect  agreement  than  the 
consciences  of  a  dozen  individuals  similarly  taken  from 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  107 

some  European  people.  Does  this  not  clearly  point 
to  the  fact  that  man's  judgments  as  to  right  and  wrong, 
whether  instinctive  or  deliberate,  are  the  result  of  the 
race  and  individual  experiences  as  to  that  which  fur- 
thers wellbeing?  And  if  it  be  asked,  "Whose  well- 
being. — my  own,  my  neighbor's,  my  family's,  that  of 
my  tribe  or  nation,  that  of  mankind,  that  of  the  world, 
or  that  of  God?" — I  think  we  may  answer:  Primarily 
that  of  the  social-political  unit,  the  horde  or  tribe  or 
nation,  but  ultimately  that  of  the  individual,  to  whose 
continuous  wellbeing  the  wellbeing  of  the  society  in 
which  he  lives  is  of  fundamental  importance. 

If  it  be  true  that  our  moral  conceptions  have  their 
origin  in  the  experiences  of  the  race  and  of  the  individ- 
ual, as  indicated  above,  we  can  readily  understand 
that  the  morality  of  the  savage,  with  his  narrow  life, 
should  be  quite  different  from  that  of  the  civilized  man, 
with  his  broad  horizon.  The  child  of  civilized  parents 
probably  inherits  certain  instincts  which  make  him,  to 
start  with,  a  better  man — i.  e.  a  more  beneficent  as 
well  as  a  more  pleasant  and  urbane  human  being — 
than  his  savage  cousin;  over  and  above  this  there  are 
the  traditional  moral  judgments  of  the  society  into 
which  he  is  born,  which  are  likely  to  be  impressed  upon 
him  so  early  in  life  that  they  seem  almost  instinctive; 
and  finally  there  is  his  own  judgment  of  what  is  beauti- 
ful and  good,  to  direct  his  moral  life.  But  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  the  members  of  a  so-called  civilized  com- 
munity are  by  no  means  all  upon  exactly  the  same 
plane  of  civilization,  that  indeed  every  so-called  civiliz- 
ed state  still  has  various  grades  of  civilization  repre- 


108  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

sented  in  its  population, — some  of  the  denizens  of  the 
slums  of  our  great  centres  of  culture,  and  sometimes 
also  the  inhabitants  of  the  more  remote  and  isolated 
country  regions,  being  nearer  barbarism  than  true 
civilization;  and  in  view  of  the  further  fact  that  the 
variety  and  complexity  of  civilized  life  tends  to  foster 
differentiation, — we  should  expect  that  all  the  elements 
above  referred  to  as  entering  into  morality — instinct, 
tradition,  and  individual  judgment — would  differ  some- 
what, both  in  their  content  and  in  their  relative 
weight,  with  the  different  members  of  a  civilized  society; 
although  the  second,  the  moral  tradition,  may  be  ex- 
pected to  be  pretty  uniform  in  its  operation.  That 
which,  for  generations,  within  a  given  society  had  been 
regarded  as  good  or  as  evil,  is  likely  to  impress  itself 
reasonably  early  even  upon  the  more  unfortunate 
members  of  the  community,  who  have  been  born  and 
reared  in  homes  of  vice,  ignorance  and  poverty. 

I  am  sometimes  disposed  to  sum  up  the  truth  as  to 
moral  evil  in  the  statement  that  it  is  the  result  of  human 

ignorance;  but  I  should  rather  say  that  it 
always,  mjuri-  is  the  result  of  human  incapacity,  although 
dolr^aSlf  if™1"  m  most  cases,  but  not  hi  all,  the  incapacity 

would   be   gone   if  the   ignorance  of  the 

wrongdoer  were  overcome.  The  wise  man 
ttls~due— L  knows  that  his  own  highest  good,  his  own 
a.  Either  to  happiness,  is  dependent  upon  the  wellbeing 

of  society  at  large,  and  this  again  upon  that 
of  its  individual  members.  If  then  it  should  occur  to 
him  to  do  aught  against  the  interests  of  society  (and 
every  injury  to  an  individual  is  an  indirect  attack 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  109 

against  society,  since  it  is  an  action  hostile  to  that 
which  society  seeks  to  effect, — the  wellbeing  of  the 
individual  members  who  compose  it, — and  tends  to 
weaken  the  social  structure),  he  would  be  checked  by 
the  consideration  that  such  conduct  would,  in  the  long 
run,  be  an  attack  upon  himself;  that  he  would  be 
weakening  the  social  bond,  upon  which  he  himself  de- 
pends for  the  great  part  of  that  which  makes  life  valu- 
able. Indeed  for  one  who  has  gamed  so  much  insight 
into  human  nature  as  to  recognize  that  our  highest 
happiness  arises  from  human  sympathy,  or,  in  other 
words,  that  the  pleasures  of  life  which  give  man  his 
greatest  happiness  are  moral  pleasures,  the  same  con- 
clusion is  reached  without  the  necessity  of  considering 
that  somewhat  vague  entity  yclept  "  socie- 
b.  Or  to  the  ty  "  in  the  chain  of  reasoning.  The  man 

unsymmetncal  . 

development      of  moral  insight  knows  at  once  that  he 

of  the  human  ..  .,  .  •      '«•»• 

faculties.  who  does  evil  to  another  robs  himself  of 

that  high  joy  which  comes  from  sympathy 
with  the  wellbeing  of  others,  and  at  the  same  time  so 
dulls  his  own  sensibilities  as  to  make  him  less  capable 
of  experiencing  the  finer  joys  of  life  in  the  future.  The 
man  who  is  without  sympathy  for  others  may  still 
enjoy  a  beefsteak,  a  yacht,  even  the  sweet  fragrance 
of  the  rose;  but  is  or  is  not  the  happiness  of  loving 
greater  than  these  pleasures?  And  does  not  every 
ungenerous  deed  we  do,  either  hurt  us  because  we  love, 
or  coarsen  us  more  and  more  and  so  tend  to  incapaci- 
tate us  for  the  love  and  sympathy  which  make  life 
rich  and  beautiful? 


110  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

But  let  us  now  consider  the  kind  of  moral  evil  that 
is  attributable  to  the  undue  strength  of  the  lower  ani- 
mal passions,  rather  than  to  mental  dull- 
Analysis  of  the    ness.     Take  the  case  of  manslaughter.     Of 

crime  of  one  .  .  ., 

in  whose  na-     the  three   elements   which   contribute  to 

ture  the  lower  ,.  .  .    .  ... 

qualities  over-    morality — uistuict,    social    tradition,    and 
higher.  individual  ethical  opinion, — the  first  alone 

seems  to  be  powerful  enough  to  make 
murder  and  manslaughter  uncommon  crimes  in  highly 
civilized  societies.  The  adult  product  of  a  high  civiliza- 
tion is  pretty  sure  to  have  an  instinctive  repugnance  to 
human  bloodshed.  While  the  savage  kills  joyously, 
the  civilized  man  kills,  if  at  all,  with  an  inward  protest. 
Although  it  exerts  a  great  influence  however,  this  in- 
fluence is  by  no  means  strong  enough  in  the  breasts  of 
all  who  live  among  civilized  people  to  keep  them  from 
taking  human  life.  But  those  hi  whom  the  instinctive 
repugnance  to  the  taking  of  human  life  is  not  strong, 
may  yet  be  prevented  from  the  commission  of  such  a 
deed  by  the  social  tradition  that  murder  and  man- 
slaughter are  damnable  crimes,  worthy  of  the  direst 
penalty, — even  though  these  persons  be  too  unintel- 
ligent to  form  a  clear  mental  picture  of  the  evils  that 
result  from  such  a  deed,  and  thus  of  forming  for  them- 
selves a  deliberate  judgment  as  to  its  wrongfulness. 
Nevertheless  such  crimes  do  occur.  Let  us  take  the 
case  of  a  young  man  who  in  a  passion  of  rage  and 
jealousy  has  stabbed  his  own  brother  to  the  heart. 
Here  neither  a  personal  judgment  of  the  wrongfulness 
of  such  a  deed,  the  traditional  acceptance  of  its  wicked- 
ness, nor  an  instinctive  repugnance  to  human  bloodshed 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  111 

have  prevented  the  commission  of  the  crime.  Some- 
one may  suggest  that  he  was  "out  of  himself"  by 
reason  of  drunkenness  and  passion;  but  upon  investi- 
gation it  appears  that  he  had  drunk  no  liquor.  Passion 
then,  we  conclude,  must  have  overpowered  his  reason 
and  his  humanity.  We  find  that  he  was  subject  to 
violent  outbreaks  of  passion  when  his  will  was  crossed. 
It  appears  that  the  animal  instinct  of  destructiveness, 
carried  to  the  limit  of  his  physical  powers,  against 
anything  that  might  stand  in  the  way  of  the  satis- 
faction of  his  immediate  desires,  has  in  this  case  over- 
powered every  other  influence  and  made  this  man  a 
fratricide.  Now  let  us  not  forget  that  this  instinc- 
tive impulse  which  leaves  no  room  for  paltering  or 
hesitation,  but  prompts  to  an  immediate  physical 
attack  upon  that  which  stands  hi  one's  way,  is  in  itself 
a  valuable  possession  for  man  as  well  as  for  the  lower 
animals.  It  is  the  basis  of  physical  courage  and  also  of 
that  which  distinguishes  the  man  of  action  from  the 
mere  dreamer.  But  on  the  lower,  more  purely  animal 
planes  of  life,  this  instinct  is  more  valuable,  goes  farther 
toward  making  the  individual  successful,  and  plays  a 
much  greater  part  in  the  sum  total  of  existence,  than 
is  the  case  on  the  higher  planes  of  culture,  where  the 
crafty  Ulysses  becomes  a  more  potent  factor  in  society 
than  the  impetuous  Achilles.  Bearing  this  in  mind, 
it  becomes  evident  that  the  crime  in  question  was  a 
result  of  imperfect  development  of  the  criminal's 
nature  into  harmony  with  the  conditions  of  civilized 
life.  In  his  case  a  valuable  trait  of  animal  and  even  of 
human  nature,  which  in  moderation  is  regarded  as  a 


112  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

virtue  among  civilized  men,  and  which  even  as  it  ex- 
isted in  his  nature  would  probably  have  been  reckoned 
a  virtue  in  a  savage  community,  had  been  insufficiently 
balanced  by  the  higher,  later-developed  traits  that 
characterize  the  more  perfectly  developed  products  of 
civilization,  in  whom  reflection,  humanity  and  brother- 
ly love  would  have  so  restrained  jealousy  and  destruc- 
tiveness  as  to  have  made  the  crime  in  question  impos- 
sible. 

The  normal  civilized  man  is  one  in  whom  the  various 
qualities  that  go  to  make  up  human  nature  as  we  know 
it  (and  in  which  both  destructiveness  and  the  physical 
passions  of  lust  have  their  legitimate  place)  are  sym- 
metrically developed  and  balanced.  He  is  not  without 
combativeness  and  destructiveness,  but  reason  and 
conscience  lead  him  to  combat  and  destroy  that  which 
is  really  evil;  he  is  not  without  sexual  lust,  but  this  is 
melted  into  the  higher  feeling  of  love,  which  makes 
him  gentle  and  considerate  as  well  as  eager.  In  the 
abnormal  man  upon  whom  civilization  has  not  yet 
done  its  work,  although  he  may  be  found  in  a  civilized 
community,  the  qualities  that  characterize  developed 
humanity  are  not  symmetrically  developed;  some  one 
or  more  (and  naturally  these  are  likely  to  be  the  lower, 
i.  e.  the  older,  more  fundamental  traits,  which  he  has 
in  common  with  the  lower  animals)  have  an  over- 
powering sway.  This  may  be  due  to  unfortunate 
training  or  lack  of  training;  to  the  fact  that  his  child- 
hood and  youth  were  passed  among  low-natured  men 
and  women,  without  the  advantages  of  mental  or 
moral  education.  In  this  case  he  is  certainly  to  be 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  113 

pitied  rather  than  to  be  blamed.  But  it  is  also  possible 
that  he  may  have  an  inherently  low  nature,  which  no 
attempt  at  moral  culture  has  been  able  to  overcome. 
He  may  have  had  advantages,  but  have  failed  to  re- 
spond to  them.  Although  brought  up  among  kind, 
wise  and  loving  people,  he  may  have  remained  always 
cruel,  violent  and  untrustworthy.  What  are  we  to  think 
of  such  a  case?  Is  it  possible  that  in  the  twentieth 
century,  in  the  full  light  of  biological,  psychological 
and  pathological  science,  any  thoughtful  and  educated 
man  can  believe  that  the  explanation  is  simply  that 
the  unmoral  person  in  question  has  wickedly  and  de- 
liberately preferred  evil  to  good?  Is  it  not  clear  that 
what  we  have  to  do  with  is  a  case  of  abnormal  develop- 
ment or  of  lack  of  development,  and  that  the  being  in 
question  is  more  or  less  a  moral  idiot? 

Such  a  case  is  in  fact  a  case  of  moral  atavism.  In 
physical  characteristics,  in  form,  coloring  and  features, 
etc.,  as  well  as  in  tastes  and  inclinations,  it 
is  not  unusual  to  find  that  a  person  strik- 
ingly resembles  a  grandparent  or  perhaps  a  much  more 
remote  ancestor, — the  resemblance  between  these  re- 
moter kinsmen  being  much  greater  than  that  between 
father  and  son  or  between  any  of  the  intermediate 
members  of  the  ancestral  line.  Hardly  anything  is 
more  interesting  or  more  puzzling  than  the  way  in 
which  now  one  and  now  another  strain  of  the  ancestral 
blood  predominates  in  the  progeny.  In  the  field  of 
artificial  breeding  it  sometimes  happens  that  from  an 
egg  produced  by  the  mating  of  two  birds  of  the  same 
well-marked,  highly  developed  artificial  variety,  will 


114  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

come  a  bird  resembling  in  all  observable  respects  the 
simple  wild  pigeons  that  were  the  ancestors  of  the 
fancy  breed.  These  cases  of  atavism  we  know  as  facts, 
although  the  biologists  have  not  yet  been  able  to  ex- 
plain them  fully.  The  study  of  embryology  has  shown 
us  how,  beginning  at  the  moment  of  conception,  each 
human  life  seems  to  repeat  in  its  own  development 
that  of  the  ancestral  animal  stock  out  of  which  the 
genus  Homo  has  developed.  The  occasional  birth  of 
human  monstrosities  shows  us  how  some  slight  pre- 
natal influence  may  arrest  or  disturb  the  course  of  this 
development,  and  give  us  an  early  type  instead  of  a 
late  one. 

Such  biological  facts  as  these  suggest  the  natural 

explanation    for   the   case    of    irremediably    perverse, 

"bad"   natures,   when   found   hi   families 

Evil  natures 

are  to  be  ex-      most  of  whose  members  have  fine  moral 

pected.  .. 

dispositions.  And  the  fact  already  re- 
ferred to,  that  in  the  population  of  every  so- 
called  civilized  state  there  are  really  many  grades  of 
civilization  represented,  and  the  further  fact  that 
vicious  surroundings,  bad  environment,  will  go  far  to 
neutralize  or  destroy  the  hard-won  gains  of  generations 
of  moral  culture, — leave  no  ground  for  surprise  that 
there  should  be  thousands  of  low  natures,  of  "bad" 
persons,  in  every  society. 

But  let  us  not  forget  the  cheering  fact  that  the  hope- 
lessly bad  cases  are  exceptional.  Ninety-nine  times 
out  of  a  hundred  in  the  case  of  perverse  natures, 
careful  treatment,  the  right  education  at  the  hands 
of  wise,  patient  and  sympathetic  men  and  women, 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  115 

will  make  of  these  unpromising  characters — not  an- 
gels, not  even  strong  and  noble  men  and  women,  if  we 
are  to  take  the  very  best  of  humanity  as 
tne  standard,  but  still  fairly  lovable  men 
and  womeQ  and  tolerably  respectable  citi- 
tionai"cep  zens,  as  the  average  runs.  It  may  well  be 
that  the  ordinary  home  and  school  training 
of  the  day,  which  suffices  to  make  of  the  average  child 
an  average  man  or  woman,  will  not  make  a  respectable 
man  of  the  exceptionally  evil-disposed  child,  however 
good  the  intentions  and  sincere  the  love  of  the  parents 
and  teachers.  The  education  of  a  difficult  nature  takes 
wisdom  as  well  as  love,  tact  as  well  as  good  intentions; 
and  the  mere  fact  that  good  and  well-meaning  parents, 
who  have  succeeded  with  their  other  children,  have  yet 
failed  to  overcome  the  evil  in  one  of  these  perverse 
natures,  should  by  no  means  lead  us  to  despair  of  such 
cases. 

Education,  then,  in  the  broad  sense  that  denotes 
such  a  development  of  human  nature  as  shall  be  made 
possible,  on  the  one  hand,  by  affording  to 
Evil,  moral  and  the  youth  of  each  generation  the  greatest 
^ be  possible  opportunity  for  the  exercise  and 
symmetrical  development  of  all  the  various 
knoewi&dfehof     faculties  of  human  nature  (physical,  men- 
**l    an<^    emotional)    and,    on   the   other 
hand,  by  presenting  to  our  youth  such  an 
over  nature.       epitome  of  the  knowledge  and  wisdom  thus 
far  gained  by  the  human  race  as  shall  put 
them  abreast  of  their  times,  arid  thus  make  possible 
for  each  generation  the  most  rapid  progress  hi  the 


116  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

arts  and  sciences  and  in  philosophy, — this  true  educa- 
tion is  the  means  by  which  we  are  to  meet  and  over- 
come evil,  both  physical  and  moral.  So  long  as  we  are 
ignorant,  imperfect,  finite  beings,  mere  men  and  women, 
not  gods,  we  shall  not  wholly  vanquish  it;  but  let  us  be 
serious  students  of  the  great  book  of  nature,  seeking  to 
understand  ourselves  and  the  wonderful  universe  in 
which  we  live,  at  once  with  the  wholesome,  open- 
minded  curiosity  of  the  little  child  and  with  the  earnest- 
ness and  judgment  of  mature  and  educated  men  and 
women,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  each  generation  will 
make  certain  and  considerable  progress  in  the  conquest 
of  evil  of  every  kind! 


V 
HAPPINESS  AND   MORALITY 


To  thine  own  self  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man. 
SHAKESPEARE 


PERHAPS  in  popular  estimation  no  two  things  stand 
farther  apart  than  ethics  and  egoism.  When,  however, 

one  substitutes  morality  and  happiness  for 
Practical  out-  these  terms,  the  breach  does  not  appear 
du?teintem-~  to  be  so  great.  While  ethical  and  egoistic 
IftherbSuli  conduct  seem  to  a  great  part  of  mankind 
tivegwoE>uidIbe~  to  be  opposed  to  each  other,  happiness  and 
theSaame!lly  morality  are  regarded  by  most  as  merely 

different,  not  necessarily  antagonistic.  With 
the  exception  of  a  class  of  narrow-minded  ascetics 
whose  conception  of  life  is  generally  discredited  today, 
the  civilized  world  recognizes  that  one  may  be  moral 
without  being  quite  miserable,  and  that  the  enjoyment 
of  a  moderate  amount  of  happiness  now  and  then  hi 
the  course  of  a  lifetime  is  not  in  and  of  itself  conclusive 
proof  of  wickedness.  Unfortunately  not  very  much 
more  than  this  has  gained  general  acceptance,  although 
an  earnest  and  thoughtful  consideration  of  the  sub- 
ject, a  careful  examination  of  what  is  involved  in  these 
two  terms,  must  convince  a  candid  mind  that  the  rela- 

117 


118  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

tion  of  these  two  things,  morality  and  happiness,  is 
much  closer  than  is  usually  supposed;  and  inasmuch 
as  happiness  is  admittedly  that  for  which  egoism  seeks, 
and  morality  is  but  the  popular  name  for  ethical  con- 
duct, this  means  that  the  relation  between  ethics  and 
egoism  is  an  intimate  one — so  intimate,  I  venture  to 
maintain,  that  the  practical  outcome  of  conduct  directed 
by  either  of  these  principles  would  be  substantially 
identical. 

Let  me  hasten  to  add  that  this  is  no  merely  academic 
question.  It  is  one  of  great  practical  importance  both 
for  our  happiness  and  for  our  virtue.  Were  that 
A  recognition  which  I  shall  endeavor  to  make  clear 
woujdstenldhto  generally  understood, — I  do  not  mean 
b^uer  wid0tt  accepted  as  a  logical  theorem,  but  appre- 
happier.  ciated,  felt  to  be  true  (for  a  mere  intellect- 

ual acquiescence  in  anything,  without  the  feeling  of  its 
truth,  is  not  knowledge,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  term, 
is  not  understanding), — we  should  be  both  better  and 
happier  than  we  are. 

To  many  the  proposition  I  have  advanced  as  to  the 
practical  identity  of  intelligent  egoistic  and  ethical  con- 
duct will  seem  absurdly  false,  if  not  the  direct  opposite 
of  the  truth.  To  others  it  may  seem  quite  possible 
that  the  terms  involved  should  be  so  conceived  that 
the  proposition  would  have  a  certain  logical  validity  of 
a  theoretical  sort;  but  even  those  who  admit  this  will 
in  most  cases,  I  fear,  feel  that  it  would  be  undesirable  to 
proclaim  this  as  a  truth  (even  though,  in  a  certain  sense, 
it  should  be  one),  lest  the  selfishness  of  ordinary  human- 
ity should  take  hold  of  the  alleged  truth  from  the 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          119 

wrong  side  and  find  in  it  an  excuse  for  self-indulgence 
and  vice.  I  am  anxious,  at  the  outset,  to  emphasize  the 
fact  that  I  regard  this  supposed  danger  as  unsubstantial 
and  to  state  my  earnest  conviction  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  improvement  in  the  morality  of  the  average 
man  and  woman  that  would  come  from  the  under- 
standing of  this  proposition  makes  it  our  duty  to  bring 
this  truth  to  recognition. 

Before  proceeding  further  let  me  call  attention  to 

the  fact  that  the  proposition  advanced  above  is  both 

theoretically  and  practically  different  from 

Distinction        historic  utilitarianism.     Theoretically  the 

between  our      utilitarianism  of  Bentham  had  no  more  to 

thesis  and 

historic  utiii-     do    with   egoism    than    idealism   has;    it 

tananism,  ° 

which  is  a         differed,  it  is   true,  from   theological  and 

theory  of  social 

duty,  according  transcendental  theories  of  ethics  in  frank- 
to  which  the 

happiness  of  ly  positing  human  wellbeing  as  both  the 
individuals  may  immediate  and  the  ultimate  ethical  aim, 

be  sacrificed  to 

the  good  of  the    the  ethical  ideal;  but   it  was  not  egoistic 

majority. 

wellbeing,  not  the  happiness  of  the  indi- 
vidual, but  the  wellbeing  of  the  mass, 
"the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number, "  that  con- 
stituted the  ethical  ideal  of  this  school.  The  theory 
was  indeed  less  individualistic,  less  egoistic,  than  the 
ethics  of  the  churches,  which  made  the  ethical  pur- 
pose consist  in  the  salvation  of  the  individual's  soul. 
Although  many  of  the  ablest  of  the  utilitarians  may 
have  been  personally  convinced  that  the  happiness  of 
the  individual  would  in  the  main  be  best  realized  by 
his  striving  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  num- 
ber the  theory  itself  was  a  theory  of  social  duty,  not  of 


120  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

individual  happiness,  and  was  entirely  consistent  with 
the  possibility  that  the  happiness  of  a  minority  of  individ- 
uals might  have  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  wellbeing  of  the 
majority.  And  the  later  utilitarians,  influenced  by  the 
study  of  biology,  to  which  the  general  acceptance  of 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  has  caused  more  and  more 
importance  to  be  attributed  by  the  ethical  philosopher, 
have  exhibited  a  very  marked  tendency  to  regard  the 
good  of  the  society,  or  of  the  race,  and  that  of  the  in- 
dividual as  very  different  things.  This  seems  to  be  the 
dominant  ethical  conception  of  the  present  time,  the 
point  of  agreement  for  those  who  in  other  respects  en- 
tertain quite  different  views.  Notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  Herbert  Spencer  is  generally  supposed  to  have 
believed  that  the  truest  ethical  progress  is  to  be  at- 
tained by  allowing  to  the  individual  the  largest  freedom 
in  seeking  his  own  happiness,  a  careful  reading  of  his 
works  brings  to  light  three  distinct  ethical  aims, — the 
good  of  the  race,  the  good  of  the  family,  and  the  good 
of  the  individual, — which,  according  to  him,  are  not 
identical,  but  are  to  be  brought  into  equilibrium  by 
means  of  his  formula  of  justice.  He  points  out  that 
the  sacrifice  of  the  individual  for  the  sake  of  the  race 
may  be  necessary,  and  directs  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  good  of  the  race  is  largely  concerned  with  posterity ; 
a  lead  that  has  been  followed  by  his  critic,  Mr.  Benjamin 
Kidd,  in  whose  ethical  teaching  the  central  thought 
seems  to  be  the  antithesis  between  present  and  future 
good, — i.  e.  between  the  good  of  the  race,  of  posterity, 
and  the  happiness  of  the  individual  that  is  now  in  being. 
And  the  last  named  gentleman  seems  to  think  that  not 


HAPPINESS   AND   MORALITY  121 

that  which  helps  us  to  enjoy  life  is  good,  but  only  that 
conduct  which  shall  contribute  to  the  wellbeing  of  a 
posterity  whose  interests  are,  in  his  opinion,  largely  op- 
posed to  ours.  While  this  apparent  disregard  for  the 
happiness  of  those  who  now  people  the  earth  may  seem 
to  be  antipodal  to  the  doctrine  of  utilitarianism,  which 
declares  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number  to  be 
the  ethical  ideal,  yet  from  the  point  of  view  that  the 
present  generation  is  a  minority  as  compared  with  the 
generations  that  are  yet  to  come,  it  may  still  be  regarded 
as  having  for  its  end  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number;  and  further  than  this,  as  I  have  intimated,  it 
has  in  fact  an  historical  connection  with  the  utilitarian- 
ism of  Bentham. 

The  erroneousness  of    this  idea    of  a  fundamental 
opposition  either  between  that  which  gives  Pleasure 
and  that  which  is  Right,  or  between  the 
antagonism  be-  g°°d  of  the  individual  and  of  the  social 
Pleasant  and      whole,  or  between  the  interests  of  the  living 
e^  toe  good  and  °f  posterity  (and  in  one  form  or  an- 
°ther  the  opposition  seems  to  be  main- 
tained  by  most  of  the  thinkers  of  our  day), 


terestsofthe     j  sha}i  endeavor  to  show.     Let  us  first 

living  and  those 

of  posterity,       seek   ^o   understand    what    is    meant   by 

false.  ^  * 

egoistic  and  what  by  ethical  conduct.  By 
egoistic  conduct  I  mean  such  conduct  on  the  part  of  an 
individual  as  is  adopted  by  him  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  to  himself  the  greatest  happiness  possible.  I 
would  call  attention,  in  passing,  to  the  fact  that  the 
definition  would  be  equally  correct  if  we  should  sub- 
stitute the  word  "pleasure  "  for  "  happiness.  "  It  seems 
however,  that  to  most  persons  the  term  "pleasure" 


122  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

suggests  only  the  lower,  sensuous  pleasures,  and  not  .at 
all  the  higher  and  more  ideal  pleasures,  which  spring 
from  the  imagination  and  the  social  affections  and  which 
find  their  satisfaction  in  the  realization  of  beauty,  in 
the  establishment  of  truth,  and  in  generous  acts  of 
private  and  public  service.  It  is  unfortunate  that  in 
the  minds  of  so  many  the  term  pleasure  should  have 
such  a  limited  connotation;  for  the  limitation  is  an 
improper  one  and  it  has  been  the  source  of  much  mis- 
understanding as  well  as  of  great  injustice  toward  many 
high-minded  Epicureans  of  ancient  and  modern  times. 
The  term  happiness  is  of  course  subject  to  the  same 
improper  limitation;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  not  so 
often  nor  so  greatly  misunderstood. 

Egoistic  conduct,  then,  having  as  its  controlling 
principle  the  happiness  of  the  individual 
ductBdefine<i.  whose  conduct  it  is,  what  is  ethical  or 
moral  conduct? 

A  short  and  seemingly  simple  answer  is  that  ethical 
conduct  has  for  its  controlling  principle  duty,  righteous- 
ness or  goodness.  But  the  simplicity  of  this  answer  is 
specious.  The  truth  is  brought  out  in  the 
Difficulty  of  accompanying  essay  on  the  Problem  of  Evil 
conduct.  (pp.  103,  104),  that  if  by  duty  obedience 

to  conscience  is  meant,  then  ethical  conduct 
is  a  purely  subjective  conception,  subject  to  immeas- 
urable variation  according  to  the  different  views  of  in- 
dividuals :  man-slaughter  and  drunkenness  being  highly 
ethical  from  the  standpoint  of  men  on  the  plane  of  the 
early  Teutons;  total  abstinence  and  polygamy  being 
right  for  the  Muslim;  celibacy  and  the  mortification 
of  the  flesh  having  the  approval  of  the  conscience  of 


HAPPINESS  AND  MORALITY  123 

the  Indian  fakir  and  the  mediaeval  Christian  saint; 
vegetarianism  and  the  subordination  of  human  beings 
to  a  host  of  sacred  animals  being  righteousness  for  the 
Brahmin;  and  while  the  confession  of  one's  sins  to  a 
priest  is  regarded  as  an  imperative  duty  by  all  Chris- 
tians outside  of  the  Protestant  folds,  the  Greek  Catholic 
Church  insists  that  these  confessions  shall  be  heard  by 
married  priests  alone,  while  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  is  equally  positive  that  only  a  celibate  may  re- 
ceive confessions. 

To  say  that  ethical  conduct  has  goodness  for  its  aim, 
leaves  us  quite  in  the  dark  as  to  the  criterion  for  right- 
eousness or  goodness.  It  is  a  serious  error  to  regard 
goodness  as  an  absolute  conception,  a  substantive 
thing,  an  idea  complete  in  itself.  Goodness  is  hi  itself 
an  incomplete  term,  and  must  have  a  complement  ex- 
pressed or  implied.  As  some  one  has  cleverly  said,  if 
a  man  or  a  thing  is  not  good  for  something,  he  or  it 
must  be  good  for  nothing.  What  is  it  then,  let  us  ask 
ourselves  again,  that  makes  ethical  or  moral  conduct 
good?  for  what  is  it  good? 

A  study  of  human  development  offers  us  an  answer 

to  this  question,  an  answer  that  is  indeed  suggested  by 

the  etymology  of  both  the  Greek  and  the 

Morality  con-    Latin  term.     The  nouns  from  which  the 

sidered  in  the  .  . 

light  of  history,  adjectives  ethical  and  moral  are  derived 
signify  habitual  conduct,  manner,  or  tradi- 
tional custom.  Ethical  or  moral  conduct,  then,  meant 
originally  conduct  that  was  in  conformity  to  the  usages 
of  the  community, — of  the  horde,  clan,  tribe,  city  or 
state, — and  which  was  accordingly  hallowed  by  tradi- 
tion and  supported  by  the  sanction  of  religion.  In  an 


124  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

early  stage  of  human  development  ethical,  or  moral, 
had  indeed  a  like  significance  with  religious;  since 
nothing  seems  to  be  better  established  than  that  among 
primitive  people  everywhere  conduct  is  strictly  con- 
trolled by  tradition,  and  that  the  religious  sanction 
attaches  itself  to  every  traditional  usage — "the  tyran- 
ny of  fashion"  was  in  early  times  no  mere  fa  con  de 
parler,  but  a  veritable  political  and  religious  control. 
Then,  indeed,  the  innovator  who  would  do  things  in  an 
unconventional  way  was  not  merely  frowned  upon  by 
the  best  society  and  condemned  for  "bad  form";  he 
was  held  to  be  guilty  of  sacrilege,  and  was  liable  to  the 
punishment  of  outlawry  and  death. 

Having  found  in  traditional  usage  the  historical 
foundation  of  ethics,  if  we  now  ask  ourselves,  further, 
what  reasonable  justification  there  is  for  traditional 
sanction  as  the  foundation  of  ethics,  an  answer  is  not 
lacking.  It  is  given  us  in  the  biological  theory  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.  Those  individuals  and  those 
social  groups  survive  and  multiply  whose  conduct  is 
adapted  to  their  actual  environment, — that  is,  whose 
actual  reactions  to  the  stimuli  afforded  by  their  sur- 
roundings (reactions  that  have  reference  not  alone 
to  nature  external  to  man,  but  also  to  other  members 
of  the  same  group  and  to  members  of  other  social 
groups)  are  of  such  a  nature  as  to  favor  the  continued 
existence  of  the  individuals  or  the  races  that  react  in  this 
particular  way.  All  knowledge,  let  us  remember,  rests 
largely  on  empiricism;  and  that  primitive  man  should 
be  the  empiricist  par  excellence  is  but  natural.  At  a 
very  early  stage  of  civilization  the  more  intelligent 
members  of  the  social  group  seem  to  have  found  that 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          125 

the  integrity  and  permanence  of  the  group  was  main- 
tained when  its  individuals  acted  in  a  particular  way; 
such  conduct,  they  may  have  reasoned,  propitiated  the 
powerful  spirits  upon  whose  favor  their  prosperity  was 
dependent;  such  conduct  would  therefore  be  regarded 
at  once  as  an  economic  necessity,  a  political  obligation, 
and  a  religious  duty.  As  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that 
the  unscientific  mind  of  primitive  society  should  discrim- 
inate nicely  between  the  essential  and  the  accidental, 
the  conception  of  moral  obligation  naturally  attached 
itself  to  much  that  was  merely  accidental,  and  had  no 
real  value  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  even  for  the 
time  and  place  in  which  the  custom  was  established. 
Hence  the  meaninglessness  of  not  a  few  of  the  moral 
and  religious  customs  prescribed  among  uncivilized 
people.  Even  today  we  have  not  gotten  wholly  past 
the  stage  when,  to  adopt  Charles  Lamb's  delightful 
little  allegory,  we  think  it  necessary  to  burn  down  a 
hut  every  time  we  would  enjoy  the  delicious  flavor  of 
roast  pig. 

Of  course  the  time  would  be  likely  to  come  when 
changing  conditions  (perhaps  arising  from  the  very 
growth  and  prosperity  of  the  community 
that  was  the  result  of  its  scrupulously 
religious  observance  of  the  earlier  tradi- 
tional  morality)  would  be  such  that  the 
sippHls°thee'  traditional  morality  would  no  longer  be 
0°°^  ^or  ^e  society;  its  traditional  morality 
might  have  been  adapted  to  the  prosperity 
of  a  small  savage  band  of  hunters  and  fishers,  but 
might  not  be  adapted  to  the  economy  of  a  considerable 


126  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

tribe  of  men  that  had  entered  upon  the  pastoral  stage 
of  human  development.  But  inasmuch  as  the  tradi- 
tional morality  has  the  sanction  of  religion,  the  read- 
justment to  the  new  condition  is  no  easy  matter.  To 
the  priests  and  elders  and  to  those  most  under  the 
influence  of  tutelage — the  children  and  the  women,  it 
may  be — a  deviation  from  the  customs  of  the  ancestors, 
from  the  traditional  morality,  will  seem  to  be  grievous 
sacrilege:  while  for  the  men  in  the  prune  of  life  whose 
activity  is  most  closely  associated  with  the  changing 
conditions,  the  leaders  in  war  and  industry  and  trade, 
whose  We  has  been  touched  by  conditions  outside  of 
the  traditional  circle,  who  have  been  affected  by  con- 
tact with  strange  peoples  having  different  customs, 
who  perhaps  have  been  compelled  by  force  of  strange 
circumstances  to  depart  from  some  tradition  of  con- 
duct, and  who  have  nevertheless  reaped  good  instead  of 
evil  therefrom, — for  these  the  traditional  morality 
will  not  have  such  an  irresistible  power  and  mastery. 
Hence  arises  what  is  perhaps  the  most  tragic  element 
in  human  history, — the  struggle  between  the  traditional 
morality  that  is  no  longer  adapted  to  the  actual  con- 
ditions of  life,  but  with  which  all  the  associations  of 
history,  of  piety  and  patriotism,  of  poetry  and  duty, 
are  interwoven,  and  the  practical  ethics  that  has  its 
basis  in  the  necessities  of  life  as  it  is  at  the  given  time 
and  place,  but  which  has  not  yet  received  the  sanction 
of  religion  nor  been  hallowed  by  tradition,  and,  though 
it  be  really  higher,  more  generous  and  magnanimous, 
more  humane,  more  spiritual,  than  the  traditional 
morality,  yet  generally  seems  to  the  conservatives, 
and  often  even  to  many  of  those  who  in  practice  adopt 


HAPPINESS  AND   MORALITY  127 

it,  either  an  immoral,  base  and  ugly  utilitarianism,  or 
— as  when  Christian  ethics  were  struggling  against  the 
ethnic  religions  of  the  ancient  world — a  fanatical  and 
impious  idealism. 

When  in  the  struggle  of  the  new  ethics  against  the 

old  the  new  fails  to  win  the  day,  the  society  decays. 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  the  new  con- 

without  such     ception  of  ethics  really  makes  headway, 

change  in  moral    .  -11  i>r> 

conceptions        it  may  do  so  either  by  a  gradual  modnica- 

society  would         .  -11 

decay;  but  the    tion  of  the  old,  with  the  more  vital  elements 

change  may  be  .  .  .        ,    . 

so  gradual  as     of  which  the  new  is  combined  into  a  new 

almost  to  escape  .  .  . 

observation.  whole,  which  yet  comes  into  existence  so 
gradually  that  the  extent  of  the  change  is 
not  clearly  apparent  (as  in  the  case  of  the  development 
of  Jewish  ethics  from  the  crude  and  cruel  particularism, 
associated  with  religious  hentheism,  presented  in  the 
book  of  Judges,  to  the  broad  humanitarianism,  as- 
sociated with  true  monotheism,  which  we  find  in  the 
second  Isaiah  and  hi  the  teachings  of  Jesus),  or  by  a 
seemingly  revolutionary  process  in  which  the  new  is 
substituted  for  the  old  (as  in  the  case  of  the  apparent 
conquest  of  the  ethics  of  classical  and  of  Teutonic  and 
.Celtic  heathendom  by  the  ethics  of  the  brotherhood 
of  man  contained  hi  Christianity, — in  which  case 
however,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  much  of  the  old  was  really 
smuggled  into  the  new;  the  religion  which  took  its  name 
from  the  apostle  of  love  having  been  actually  propa- 
gated by  the  swords  of  Chlodwig  and  Karl  the  Great, 
and  many  heathen  practices  and  heathen  views  having 
become  a  part  of  the  tradition  of  the  Christian  Church) . 
A  careful  study  of  history  shows  us  that  the  ethical 
system  of  every  progressive  people  undergoes  continual 


128  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

modification,  but  the  change  in  moral  ideas  is  generally 
so  gradual  as  to  be  unobserved  by  the  great  number 
of  those  among  whom  it  takes  place.  No  attentive 
and  candid  student  of  history,  however,  would  main- 
tain that  the  ethics  actually  taught  in  the  homes  (by 
precept  or  example),  or  even  the  teaching  of  the  official 
hierarchy  of  the  Christian  Church,  was  the  same  in  the 
first,  the  fourth,  the  fifteenth,  and  the  nineteenth 
century.  There  are  of  course  certain  conceptions 
that  are  common  to  all  of  these  periods;  but  neverthe- 
less the  Christianity  of  the  first  century  and  that  of 
the  fourth  were  very  different,  and  either  of  these  was 
quite  different  from  either  Roman  or  Protestant  Chris- 
tianity in  the  fifteenth  century.  Both  the  theology  and 
the  accepted  ethics  of  these  different  epochs  were 
different,  and  the  ethical  conceptions  that  prevailed 
at  any  one  of  these  periods  were  dissimilar  from  those 
of  today. 

As  a  child  under  Protestant  instruction  I  was  given 
the  impression  that  religious  persecution  and  physical 
punishment  for  heresy  were  peculiar  to  Roman  Catholic 
Christianity;  and  that  the  reason  they  are  not  widely 
practised  by  Catholics  today  is  that  the  Romanists 
are  not  now  strong  enough  to  venture  on  such  drastic 
measures.  When  later  I  studied  history  for  myself 
and  learned  that  Protestants  also  persecuted  and 
killed  in  the  name  of  religion,  and  indeed  that,  at  a 
period  generations  later  than  the  Reformation  era,  it 
was  in  Protestant  communities  that  the  pitifully  cruel 
and  absurd  witchcraft  trials  and  executions  took  place, 
I  realized  that  it  was  neither  Romanism  nor  Protest- 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          129 

antism  as  such  that  caused  these  evils,  but  an  unen- 
lightened moral  consciousness  characteristic  of  the 
particular  stage  of  civilization  in  question — for  which, 
it  must  of  course  be  granted,  the  actual  teachings  of 
the  clergy  of  both  the  mother  and  the  daughter  church 
were  not  without  responsibility,  but  which  nevertheless 
was  not  an  essential  part  of  either  form  of  Christianity. 
The  Presbyterian  layman  with  whom  I  was  in  conver- 
sation yesterday  professes  to  believe  just  what  Calvin 
taught,  but  it  would  be  impossible  to  gain  his  consent 
to  the  execution  of  an  atheist  or  an  alleged  witch, 
much  less  of  a  Unitarian  or  a  Quaker,  upon  religious 
grounds;  and  although  Cardinal  Vaughan,  of  England, 
and  Archbishop  Ireland,  of  the  United  States,  are 
among  the  stanchest  pillars  of  the  mother  Church,  and 
profess  that  Catholic  truth  is  one  and  unchangeable, 
we  are  perfectly  confident  that  neither  religious  execu- 
tion nor  inquisitorial  torture  would  receive  their  ap- 
proval or  would  be  possible  in  any  part  of  the  world 
over  which  their  influence  might  extend. 

It  is  well  for  us  to  recognize  the  fact  that  from  a 
purely  theoretical  point  of  view  it  is  not  difficult  to 
reconcile  religious  persecutions  with  the  faith  professed 
by  the  civilized  world.  Let  us  remember  that  the 
idle  hermit  and  the  active  philanthropist,  the  militant 
crusader,  the  cruel  inquisitor,  the  intolerant  Puritan 
and  the  non-resistant  Quaker,  each  found  the  justifica- 
tion for  his  life  and  conduct  in  the  vast  and  various 
treasury  of  Scripture  from  which  the  several  Christian- 
ities of  the  last  two  thousand  years  have  been  minted. 
We  read  in  these  Scriptures  that  the  inhabitants  of 
Palestine  were  driven  from  their  homes  by  Jehovah's 


130  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

people  in  accordance  with  his  instructions;  and  that 
according  to  the  command  of  the  God  of  Israel,  as  set 
forth  in  Deuteronomy,  not  only  the  men  of  the  heathen 
cities  were  to  be  dispossessed  and  killed,  but  the  women 
and  the  children  were  to  be  put  to  the  sword.  And 
Jesus  himself  is  reported  to  have  said  that  he  came 
not  to  bring  peace  but  a  sword;  that  brother  should 
rise  up  against  brother  and  son  against  father.  We 
also  read  in  the  New  Testament  that  it  is  better  to  cut 
off  the  offending  hand  and  pluck  out  the  offending  eye 
than  to  risk  the  loss  of  Heaven.  Since,  then,  the 
matter  of  fundamental  importance  is  represented  to  be 
the  salvation  of  the  immortal  soul,  not  the  mundane 
wellbeing  of  the  short-lived  human  body,  it  is  easy  to 
see  how  a  faithful,  conscientious  Christian,  believing 
his  own  creed  to  be  the  true  rendering  of  that  religious 
truth  which  God  through  his  early  prophets  and  through 
his  son  Jesus  Christ  and  the  church  established  by  him 
had  given  to  men  for  their  guidance,  and  loving  the 
immortal  souls  of  his  brother-men  more  than  their 
perishable  bodies,  should  feel  bound  to  torture  these 
bodies  to  the  last  extremity  if  there  were  no  other  way 
of  bringing  them  to  the  acceptance  of  spiritual  truth, 
and  to  destroy  the  bodies  of  a  few  thousands  if  thereby 
their  souls  could  be  brought  back  to  God  or  the  souls 
of  millions  of  others  could  thus  be  prevented  from 
going  astray.  This  point  of  view  and  this  line  of  con- 
duct is  just  as  consistent  with  the  letter  of  the  Christian 
Scriptures  and  the  traditions  of  the  Christian  Church  as 
is  that  conception  of  the  gospel  of  love  which  you  and 
I  believe  to  be  a  truer  interpretation  of  Jesus'  thought; 
and  so  the  good  Christians  .of  the  day  in  which  the 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY         131 

public  temper  was  habituated  to  violence  very  natural- 
ly appealed  to  it  to  bring  about  the  conquest  of  the 
Right.     But  the  gentler  tone  of  mind  and  the  more 
„_  . .  .  sensitive  natures  of  a  period  in  which  the 

The  higher  .  ..,.,. 

morality  of  the    predominance    of  industrialism  over  mili- 

last  hundred 

years  as  com-    tarism  has  made  peace  the  normal  condi- 

pared  with  that  . 

of  the  earlier      tion  and  war  the  exception,  lead  us  now  to 

Christian  cen-       ...  .  .  .    , 

tunes,  is  due  to  shrink  from   such   practices  as   inhuman, 

a  better  under- 

standing  of        and  we  turn  to  other  texts  for  guidance 

men's  place  in 

nature  rather     and  construe  our  religious  authorities  dif- 

thantoamore  .  .      ..  ...       , 

careful  study  of  ferently.  It  is  practically  impossible  for 
men  upon  our  present  stage  of  civilization 
to  feel  (whatever  they  may  say  they  think)  that  body 
and  soul  are  so  utterly  distinct  that  I  can  love  the  soul 
while  I  torture  the  body  to  death.  And  the  difference 
in  point  of  view  is  not,  I  believe,  due  to  a  more  careful 
study  of  the  Scriptures  on  our  part,  but  to  a  larger 
knowledge  of  nature,  and  a  correspondingly  truer  feel- 
ing as  to  the  unity  of  life,  and  a  deeper  and  more  genuine 
sympathy  with  all  that  is. 

But  after  all,  stronger  than  all  our  theories,  whether 
based  upon  the  severe  or  the  gentle  passages  of  Scrip- 
ture, whether  based  upon  authority  at  all 
it  is  custom  that  or  upon  an  earnest  study  of  things  as  they 

actually  con-  , 

trois  morality,  are  (as  we  find  them)  and  the  attempt  in 
our  philosophy  of  life  to  mirror  the  laws  of 
universal  existence, — stronger  for  the  guidance  of  in- 
dividual human  conduct  than  all  our  theories  is  habit. 
it  is  this,  the  customs  of  the  race  and  of  the  community, 
rather  than  the  teachings  of  our  priests  or  philosophers, 
that  makes  our  morality  what  it  is.  And  this  it  comes 
about  that  the  more  flagrant  forms  of  violence  being 


132  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

inconsistent  with  the  habits  of  life  of  an  advanced  in- 
dustrial civilization,  the  weight  of  tradition  upon  such 
a  civilization  would  need  to  be  extraordinarily  heavy 
to  keep  it  from  so  bringing  its  theoretical  ethics  into  line 
with  its  practical  morality,  upon  this  point,  as  to  de- 
nounce methods  of  physical  violence. 

The  foregoing  hasty  review  of  the  etymology  of  the 
words  ethical  and  moral,  and  of  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  morality  itself,  should  help  us  to 
Ethical  conduct  understand  the  modern  significance  of  the 

may  now  be  *».«»« 

defined  as  that  teims.     Etymologically,  morality  is  what 

which  is  con-       .  7          .  . 

ducive  to  the     is    customary;   historically,  it   means   the 

welfare  of  man-       .  . 

kind.  kind  of  conduct  that,  having  proven  favor- 

able to  the  wellbeing  of  society,  became 
customary  and  was  recognized  as  good.  As  society  has 
widened, — that  is,  as  men  have  entered  more  and  more 
largely  into  amicable  relations  with  those  outside  of 
their  immediate  kindred  and  beyond  their  immediate 
neighborhood, — morality  has  become  higher.  Ethics 
being  the  science  or  theory  of  morality,  the  significance 
of  ethical  and  moral  may  for  our  present  purpose  be 
regarded  as  identical,  and  we  may  conclude  that  for 
civilized  man  in  the  twentieth  century  ethical  conduct 
is  such  as  is  conducive  to  the  welfare  of  mankind. 

In  the  light  of  the  definitions  at  which  we  have  ar- 
rived I  would  now  restate  my  belief  that,  although 
Restatement  moral  conduct  be  philanthropic  conduct 
having  for  its  end  the  best  interests  of 
mankind,  while  egoistic  conduct  has  for  its  purpose  the 
highest  happiness — or,  if- you  will,  the  greatest  pleasure 
— of  the  individual  actor,  yet  the  intelligent  pursuit  of 
either  of  these  ends  achieves  also  the  other. 


HAPPINESS  AND  MORALITY  133 

I  need  hardly   insist  upon  the  fact  indicated  by 

Aristotle  and  developed  and  emphasized    again  and 

again,  especially  by  Herbert  Spencer  and 

Because  the       tne  evolutionary  sociologists  of    the  last 

individual's 

welfare  is  uiti-  hah*  century,  that  man  is  so  thoroughly 

mately  depend- 

ent  upon  that     a     political  animal,     so  pre-eminently  a 

of  society,  im-  .    ,   ,     .  ,..,..,  im- 

moral conduct    social  being,  that  his  individual  welfare  is 

is  hostile  to  his  . 

own  interests,  dependent  upon  the  prosperity  of  the 
particular  human  community  of  which  he 
is  a  member — upon  its  ability  to  maintain  itself  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  with  other  groups  and  other  races 
of  men  and  animals  and  with  the  hardships  of  external 
nature,  its  success  in  turning  the  raw  material  of  nature 
into  means  of  enjoyment,  in  other  words,  upon  the 
degree  of  intelligence  and  virtue  it  exhibits  in  the  ac- 
quisition of  wealth  and  hi  rendering  its  wealth  ser- 
viceable for  the  happiness  and  development  of  its 
members  and  their  posterity.  In  the  long  run,  then, 
it  is  beyond  question  that  immoral  conduct  (i.  e.,  con- 
duct hostile  to  the  best  interests  of  society)  will  be 
destructive  of  the  individual's  possibilities  of  happiness. 
But  while  this  is  admitted,  for  what  it  may  be  worth, 
it  is  by  no  means  regarded  as  conclusive  of  that  for 
which  I  would  contend.  The  answer  is  made  that  the 
individual  in  his  pursuit  of  happiness  is  not  primarily 
concerned  with  what  is  true  in  the  long  run,  but  with 
the  present.  It  may  be  true  that  his  opportunities 
for  happiness  would  not  be  as  great  as  they  are  if  the 
conduct  of  his  fore-runners  and  contemporaries  had 
not  been  and  were  not  moral,  and  that  much  of  the 
possibility  for  happiness  on  the  part  of  posterity  may 


134  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

be  destroyed  by  immoral  conduct  on  his  part  and  on 
that  of  his  contemporaries;  but  he  may  say  that  he  will 
take  now  the  goods  the  gods  (i.  e.  his  ancestors  and  his 
contemporaries)  have  provided,  and  will  let  the  future 
take  care  of  itself. 

"Tomorrow,  didst  thou  say?   Methought  I  heard  Horatio  say 

Tomorrow. 

Go  to;  I  will  not  hear  of  it! 
'Tis  a  period  nowhere  to  be  found 
In  all  the  hoary  record  of  the  past,  except,  perchance, 
In  the  fool's  calendar. 

Or  if  the  poet's  authority  should  not  appear  to  be 
sufficient  to  justify  his  selfish  immorality,  he  may 
insist  upon  the  fact  that  he  owes  nothing  to  posterity, 
which,  as  Mark  Twain  has  put  it,  has  never  done  any- 
thing for  us;  and  as  regards  his  predecessors,  he  may 
maintain  that  it  is  now  out  of  his  power  to  pay  the  debt 
he  owes  to  them  for  the  good  he  now  enjoys. 

But  while  we  would  of  course  admit  that  there  is  a 
measure  of  sound  philosophy  in  the  preference  of  a 
certain  present  to  an  uncertain  future,  it 
ducTwMchhis  remains  true  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  no 
nlzels  hostue  normal  member  of  the  genus  Homo  sapiens, 
of  toemseivls!  especially  in  his  civilized  state,  can  shut 
ents^society  ou*  ^rom  n^s  consideration  the  immediate 
ly'puidshedTy"  ^uture-  The  present  for  him  is  a  relative 
them,  such  im-  term;  and  if  he  knew,  for  example,  that 

moral  conduct 

SS*if  h?stile  indulgence  in  his  favorite  drink  would  with- 

to  the  happiness 

of  the  perpetra-  in  the  next  ten  minutes  bring  on  an  ex- 
tor  himself.  m  D 

cruciating  attack  of  gout  which  would  last 
for  weeks,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he  would  not  (if  he  were 
still  sober)  take  the  drink, — even  though  it  be  freely 
granted  that  he  might  yield  to  the  temptation  if,  in- 


HAPPINESS  AND   MORALITY  135 

stead  of  the  certainty  of  an  almost  immediate  penalty, 
there  were  only  an  exceedingly  strong  probability  that 
in  the  course  of  no  very  long  period  of  time  he  would 
have  to  suffer  severely  for  his  intemperance.  Applying 
this  vividness  of  appreciation  of  the  proximate  future — 
which  is  a  part  of  the  mental  constitution  of  normal 
civilized  man — to  the  matter  in  hand,  we  see  that 
the  inexpediency  of  immoral  selfishness,  even  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  egoist's  happiness,  is  greater  than 
it  may  at  first  have  appeared  to  be.  For  he  has  to 
reckon,  not  alone  with  a  vague  entity  yclept  Society, 
but  with  his  contemporaries,  with  his  neighbors.  Con- 
duct upon  his  part  hostile  to  the  welfare  of  society — 
and  this  is  the  essence  of  immorality — is  pretty  sure 
to  draw  upon  himself  the  unfavorable  attention  of  his 
fellows,  as  soon  as  they  realize  that  his  conduct  is  in- 
jurious to  their  interests;  and  the  chances  are  that  they 
will  be  able  to  make  it  so  uncomfortable  for  him  that 
he  will  have  to  abandon  the  course  of  immorality  upon 
which  he  might  have  been  disposed  to  proceed,  and, 
selfish  as  he  may  be  at  heart,  will  lead  a  tolerably  moral 
life,  just  because  it  is  necessary  to  his  own  comfort  and 
happiness  to  keep  on  decent  terms  with  his  fellows. 

Immorality  is  always  an  evidence  of  deficient  under- 
standing either  on  the  part  of  the  individual, — as  we 
immorality  is  see  especially  in  the  case  of  the  flagrant 
dissent  under-  malefactors  who,  because  of  the  natural 
on'the^part^"  obtuseness  of  their  sensibilities  or  their 
tTJXSSf*  intellect  or  because  of  their  unfortunate 
group-  bringing-up,  are  too  ignorant  to  realize 

how  much  more  true  happiness  there  would    be  in 


136  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

an  honorable,  temperate  life,  in  harmony  with  the 
best  aspirations  of  society,  than  is  possible  to  the  dis- 
eased debauchee  or  the  hunted  outlaw, — or  on  the 
part  of  society  at  large  or  of  an  influential  section  of 
it, — as  is  the  case  when  the  public  opinion  of  society  or 
of  a  class  permits  certain  forms  of  vice,  such  as  mis- 
treatment of  members  of  one  class  by  another,  intem- 
perance in  work  or  in  recreation,  unscrupulousness  in 
business  transactions,  political  corruption,  etc. 

There  is  an  enormous  amount  of  such  ignorance, — 
not  total  ignorance,  but  fatally  inadequate  knowledge, 
— and  to  it  the  immorality  of  our  day  is 
mainly  due.  For  the  great  bulk  of  our 
iwhticai  comip-  socjai}  business  and  political  immorality, 
society  itself  is  responsible;  in  that  society 
at  large,  or  that  part  of  it  with  which  the  wrongdoer 
has  most  to  do,  has  no  adequate  sense  of  the  injury  to 
humanity  that  arises  from  these  forms  of  vice,  and 
hence  no  adequate  sense  of  their  immorality.  There 
may  be  formal  recognition  that  the  conduct  in  question 
is  not  ideal,  that  it  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  highest 
conception  of  virtue;  but  in  that  important  section  of 
the  community  to  which  the  wrongdoer  is,  and  feels 
himself  to  be,  primarily  responsible,  there  is  no  clear 
idea  of  why  it  is  wrong  and  no  real  feeling  of  its  moral 
turpitude.  This  is  quite  evident  in  that  widespread 
kind  of  immorality  illustrated  by  political  corruption, 
the  subordination  of  official  duty  to  private  ends.  It 
exists  and  flourishes,  not  because  of  the  extraordinary 
wickedness  of  those  who  happen  to  be  most  active  in  it, 
but  because  of  the  general  sentiment  throughout  society 


HAPPINESS   AND   MORALITY  137 

that,  while  it  would  of  course  be  wrong  for  a  public 
steward  to  embezzle  outright  a  thousand  dollars  of  the 
money  committed  to  his  care,  and  to  put  it  into  his  own 
pocket  without  giving  a  cent's  equivalent  therefor, 
yet  it  would  be  an  entirely  different  thing  for  the  same 
man  to  avail  himself  of  the  power  of  his  position  to 
appoint  his  son  or  daughter  or  the  nephew  of  a  friend 
at  a  salary  of  fifteen  hundred  dollars  to  spend  an  hour 
a  day  some  six  months  in  the  year  in  doing  poorly  that 
for  which  he  or  she  is  incompetent  or  for  the  doing  of 
which  there  is  no  real  necessity.  For  while  it  is  crimi- 
nal to  steal  outright,  it's  a  man's  right  and  duty  to  do 
all  he  can  for  his  family  and  friends;  and  the  man  who 
doesn't  do  anything  for  his  friends  when  he  is  in  a 
position  of  influence — and  of  course  there's  no  particu- 
lar credit  in  giving  to  a  friend  what  he  could  have  gotten 
on  his  own  merits,  even  from  a  stranger — is  either 
cold-hearted,  mean  and  selfish,  or  else  he's  a  victim  of 
an  extravagant  kid-glove  and  silk-stocking  Sunday- 
school  morality  that  unfits  a  man  for  practical  life  and 
especially  for  the  practice  of  the  good  old  homely  virtue 
of  loyalty  to  one's  friends.  We  may  denounce  public 
corruption  very  strongly,  but  so  long  as  the  point  of 
view  just  set  forth  is  that  which  the  majority  of  active 
voters  actually  take,  and  which  nine  tenths  of  us  tend 
to  take  when  the  matter  has  a  personal  interest  for  us, 
— when  the  question  is  as  to  making  a  place  for  our 
nephew  or  letting  a  contract  at  a  high  price  to  our 
uncle — we  do  not  really  feel  that  these  practices  are 
iniquitous;  and  until  we  do  so  feel,  our  alleged  knowl- 
edge of  their  wrongfulness  is  a  mere  formal,  not  a  real 
knowledge. 


138  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

The  bearing  of  this  upon  the  relation  between  egoistic 
and  ethical  conduct  is  that  not  egoism, — the  desire  to 
please  one's  self,  to  gain  happiness  for  one's  self, — but 
only  dense  stupidity,  would  lead  an  individual  to  adopt 
a  line  of  conduct  of  the  unquestionable  immorality  of 
which  the  society  in  which  he  lived  was  fully  convinced 
and  thoroughly  aware.  He  may  indeed  be  allowed  to 
get  pleasure  for  himself  by  doing  things  that  his 
neighbors  say  are  not  consistent  with  the  ideal  of  a 
perfect  Christian  gentleman;  but  selfishness  itself, 
regard  for  his  own  happiness,  will  work  to  keep  him 
from  bumping  his  head  against  a  stone  wall,  by  doing 
those  things  of  the  injuriousness  of  which  to  themselves 
as  the  constituents  of  society  (i.  e.,  of  the  immorality  of 
which)  his  fellows  have  a  lively  conviction. 

But  even. though  this  also  be  admitted;  though  it  be 
granted  not  only  that  in  the  long  run  the  happiness  of 
the  individual  is  dependent  upon  the  goad  of  society, 
or  in  other  words,  that  egoistic  satisfaction  is  dependent 
upon  morality,  but  also  that  the  immediate,  present 
happiness  of  each  individual  is  dependent  upon  respect 
for  so  much  of  the  moral  law  as  to  the  truth  of  which 
his  fellows  are  unquestionably  convinced  and  as  to  the 
obligation  of  which  they  are  thoroughly  in  earnest, — it 
may  still  be  said  that  it  remains  true  that  egoism  may 
lead  to  immorality,  either  because  society  itself  (as 
has  been  suggested  in  the  foregoing  discussion)  has  an 
inadequate  understanding  of  the  moral  turpitude  of 
certain  kinds  of  conduct,  or  because  the  individual, 
lacking  the  intelligence  or  the  education  that  would 
enable  him  to  foresee  for  himself  that  there  is  more 


HAPPINESS  AND  MORALITY  139 

happiness  in  morality  than  in  immorality,  is  too  insen- 
sible to  feel  the  lighter,  and  too  stupid  to  anticipate 
the  heavier  punishments  that  society  will  certainly 
inflict  upon  him  for  his  immorality. 

This  is  perfectly  true.     My  contention  is  not  that 

egoism  produces  moral  conduct,  but  that  it  does  so  in 

proportion  as  it  is  intelligent;  that  if  the 

wwie  egoism     pure  egoist  were  perfectly  intelligent  and 

such  produce     thoroughly  informed,  he  would  be  perfectly 

morality,  it  will  i     ,,  •     i  i      •   .  .1 

do  so  hi  pro-      moral :  that  wisdom  and  virtue  go  together, 

portion  as  it  is  .  .  .  . 

intelligent.  the  truest  wisdom  being  inconsistent  with 
anything  but  the  highest  virtue  or,  to 
state  the  truth  in  negative  and  somewhat  rough  terms, 
that  the  knave  is  pro  tanto  a  fool.  Happiness  and 
morality  are  by  no  means  the  same  thing,  but  the 
former  is  conditioned  by  the  latter;  if  you  would  have 
the  greatest  happiness  you  must  practice  the  highest 
virtue. 

I  cannot  prove  this,  because  happiness  is  a  feeling, 

and  psychological  states  do  not  readily  lend  themselves 

to   mathematical   measurement.     I   have, 

The  greatest      however,  already  gone  two  thirds  of  the 

pleasures  are 

moral  pleas-      way  toward  establishing  its  truths  by  mere- 

ures,  having  *  ^ 

their  springs  in  Jy  calling  attention  to  the  almost  self- 
sympathy. 

These  give  us     evident  facts,  first,  that  the  individual's 

most  pleasure 

at  the  moment    opportunities  for  pleasure  are  dependent 

and  also  last  . 

longest.  upon  the  welfare  of  society,  and,  secondly, 

that  conduct  clearly  recognized  as  hostile 
to  the  welfare  of  society  will  bring  immediate  punish- 
ment upon  the  head  of  the  wrongdoer.  But  the  most 
important  consideration  is  that  which  cannot  be  proven 


140  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

to  exist  if  the  mere  statement  does  not  carry  conviction, 
to  wit,  that  the  greatest  pleasures  are  moral  pleasures; 
that  our  highest  happiness  is  dependent  upon  sympathy 
and  has  its  springs  in  the  social  affections  and  the 
imagination,  through  which  it  becomes  possible  to 
enter  into  the  life  of  that  which  is  outside  of  our  own 
skins;  that,  for  instance,  the  glow  of  pleasure  which 
tingles  in  our  every  nerve  at  the  contemplation  of  some 
noble,  generous  and  loving  deed,  or,  even  sweeter  per- 
haps, the  joy  which  is  ours  at  being  ourselves  able  to 
express  our  sympathy  for  others  or  for  another  by  some 
signal  service, — this  glow  of  happiness,  this  joyous 
exultation,  is  not  only  brighter,  keener,  higher,  stronger 
at  the  moment  than  the  greatest  non-moral  or  purely 
sensuous  pleasure,  but  it  also  lasts  longer,  and  con- 
stitutes a  permanent  addition  to  our  happiness. 

The  purely  sensuous  pleasures  add  little  to  our  happi- 
ness as  compared  with  moral  pleasures;  first,  as  just 
intimated,  because  of  their  comparative  impermanence; 
a  taste,  a  smell,  a  physical  contact,  unless  accompanied 
by  some  human  or  social — i.  e.,  some  potentially  moral — 
association,  having  little  or  no  power  of  revival.  Even 
the  pleasures  from  sights  and  sounds — less  purely 
sensuous  as  they  are,  and  more  dependent  upon  the 
constructive  imagination — are  not  infrequently  de- 
pendent also  upon  human  and  moral  associations  for 
the  permanence  of  the  impression  they  produce.  Fur- 
ther than  this,  there  is  the  other  fact  mentioned  above, 
that,  as  compared  with  moral  pleasures,  sensuous  pleas- 
ures have  less  power  to  make  us  happy  even  while  we 
are  enjoying  them.  There  are  few  human  beings,  I 


HAPPINESS  AND   MORALITY        141 

believe,  that  get  greater  pleasure  from  the  sense  of 
smell  than  I.  The  fragrance  of  some  flowers  gives  me 
pleasure  so  exquisite  as  to  be  almost  intoxicating.  And 
yet  in  a  garden  filled  with  the  most  delicate  perfumes 
I  believe  it  would  be  possible  for  me  to  be  quite  miser- 
able (by  reason  of  the  moral,  the  human,  content  of  my 
consciousness).  But  however  hard  fate  may  have 
dealt  with  one,  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  possible 
for  any  one  to  be  quite  miserable  at  the  moment  of 
doing  a  generous  deed;  perhaps  this  can  also  be  said 
of  the  moment  in  which  one  recognizes  a  generous 
action  on  the  part  of  another. 

Whether  the  egoist's  most  desired  pleasures  be  those 
of  the  senses,  as  the  satisfaction  of  his  gluttonous  and 

lustful  appetites,  the  stimulus  of  intoxi- 
"uhiybeil~doer  cants,  the  indulgence  in  luxurious  idleness, 
*  whether  they  be  the  satisfaction  of  his 
i-  vanity»  by  making  a  parade  of  wealth  and 
pleasure  from  magnificence  in  dress  and  surroundings 
8ffa5Selrom  before  nis  fellows,  or  whether  he  be  ambi- 
heCnughttbe'too  tious  as  well  as  vaui,  desiring  to  win  the 
himself  forrt  applause  of  the  public  as  an  artist  or  to 
^asurelher  Saui  and  wield  real  power  over  his  fellows, 

— I  feel  confident  that  if  the  evildoer  could 
once  be  made  acquainted  with  moral  pleasures  by  being 
brought  to  experience  them,  he  would  get  more  happi- 
ness from  them  than  from  his  favorite  vices.  I  do  not, 
however,  maintain  that  he  would  thereafter  lead  a 
uniformly  virtuous  life;  for  a  low,  undeveloped  or 
distorted  nature  might  well  be  too  weak  to  persevere 
in  the  effort  necessary  to  secure  these  higher  and  greater 


142  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

pleasures  when  the  lesser  ones  to  which  he  was  habitu- 
ated were  within  easy  reach.  Still  for  the  student  of 
human  nature  who  is  also  a  lover  of  his  kind  (as  every 
earnest  student  must  be),  nothing  is  more  touching  nor 
more  hopeful  than  the  outcropping  of  a  long  dormant 
but  living  germ  of  moral  feeling  in  the  lives  of  the  most 
vicious — a  phenomenon  that  has  again  and  again  been 
observed.  The  pleasure  which  a  brutal,  selfish  criminal 
sometimes  exhibits  at  having  been  surprised  into  be- 
coming a  benefactor  and  bringing  joy  into  the  life  of 
some  other  human  being, — some  innocent  child  per- 
haps,— seems  to  be  really  greater,  even  for  his  low 
nature,  than  that  which  he  gets  from  indulgence  in  his 
favorite  vice;  and  it  is  by  bringing  habitual  evildoers 
to  feel  the  satisfaction  of  playing  a  beneficent  part  in 
the  life  of  some  fellow  being  or  in  the  promotion  of  some 
public  interest,  that  the  most  successful  reformatory 
work  has  been  done.  When  in  the  narrow  mind  of  the 
self-centered  egoist  a  perception  is  at  last  awakened 
of  the  pleasure  which  comes  from  moral  conduct  when 
it  is  adopted,  not  under  protest,  because  one  must  do 
so,  nor  yet  as  a  matter  of  habitual  routine,  but  from 
the  exhilarating  joy  of  working  with  and  for  others 
(thus  contributing  to  the  good  of  that  large  whole  of 
which  his  individual  physical  life  is  itself  a  part) — 
then  even  he  finds  to  his  surprise  that  his  greatest  hap- 
piness, his  highest  pleasure,  comes  from  the  satisfaction 
of  his  moral  instincts. 

But  even  if  this  could  not  be  shown,  if,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  were  proven  that  strongly  immoral  natures 
were  so  incapable  of  deriving  pleasure  from  any  other 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          143 

than  immoral  and  non-moral  pleasures,  that  egoism  must 
with  them  always  be  immoral  in  its  outcome,  it  would 
still  be  true  that  for  normal  individuals  the 
thi^are^e*"  greatest  happiness  is  to  be  found  in  moral 
compliment"  pleasures.  Let  us  remember  that  no 
pro^essTand  simple  sensuous  pleasure  is  hi  itself  im- 
theSem!rtionais  moraU  it  is  at  most  unmoral,  although 
ty,SinteiiectuSi~  indulgence  in  it  may  be  immoral  when  it 
cajl  on^  ^e  ^a<^  ^y  ignoring  others  or  by 
destroying  the  balance,  the  fine  temper, 
of  one's  own  life.  As  man  advances  be- 
yond the  brute  and  the  savage  in  complexity  of 
organization,  emotional  sensitiveness  and  responsive- 
ness, and  intellectual  power,  the  sources  of  possible 
pleasure  which  lie  open  to  him  are  ever  increasing,  but 
they  are  dependent  upon  the  enlargement  of  his  sympathe- 
tic capacity, — his  increased  ability  to  feel  an  interest 
in,  and  so  in  some  measure  to  understand,  what  lies 
outside  his  immediate  self,  his  growing  power  to  recog- 
nize the  relation  between  himself  and  all  else  that  exists. 
For  sympathy  (in  the  large  sense  in  which,  for  the  lack 
of  a  better,  I  use  the  term)  is  as  truly  the  condition  of 
intellectual,  as  it  is  of  emotional  and  moral,  development. 
We  cannot  begin  to  understand  a  new  object  presented 
to  our  consciousness  until  we  have  recognized  some- 
thing in  it  akin  to  something  that  we  have  already 
made  our  own:  it  must  be  akin  to  some  part  of  our 
present  mental  furniture  or  it  cannot  be  added  thereto; 
it  must  remain  incomprehensible,  outside  of  our  ken. 
It  is  to  me  a  wonderfully  illuminating  thought  that  in 
sympathy  we  have  the  means  and  the  measure  of  all 


144  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

human  growth, — physical,  intellectual,  moral,  and  he- 
donistic. In  proportion  as  members  of  little  clans 
feel  their  oneness  with  men  outside  the  clan,  do  petty 
hordes  grow  into  great  and  powerful  tribes.  In  pro- 
portion as  man  recognizes  the  community  of  life  be- 
tween himself  and  the  rest  of  the  organic  world,  and 
thus  becomes  able  to  interpret  each  in  the  light  of  the 
other,  and  in  proportion  as  he  recognizes  that  the 
fundamental  principles  hi  accordance  with  which  his 
own  nature  develops,  and  which  his  own  mental  pro- 
cesses reflect,  regulate  also  the  orderly  transformations 
of  the  whole  Universe,  organic  and  inorganic,  in  tnat 
measure  does  his  intellectual  horizon  expand.  And 
just  as  it  is  the  recognition  of  our  community  of  nature 
with  that  which  is  external  to  and  beyond  our  individual 
selves,  upon  which  our  wisdom  is  based,  so  is  it  out  of 
the  recognition  of  the  corresponding  community  of 
interest  that  our  morality  develops.  And,  finally, 
through  this  physical,  intellectual  and  moral  develop- 
ment by  means  of  which  all  that  is  becomes  a  part  of 
our  life,  do  we  attain  that  richness  of  life  which  we 
name  happiness.  The  more  perfectly  we  come  to  recog- 
nize that  that  of  which  we  are  a  part,  and  in  harmony 
with  which  we  must  therefore  order  our  individual 
lives,  is  not  merely  a  household,  a  family  or  a  class,  a 
district  or  a  country,  mankind,  or  even  the  organic 
world  or  the  world  of  spirit;  but  that  nothing  less  than 
all  of  the  Universe  is  the  whole  in  the  perfection  of 
which  we  are  to  find  our  own  happiness, — the  more 
successful  we  shall  be  in  living  beautiful,  happy  lives. 
But  for  our  present  purpose  it  is  only  necessary  to  recog- 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          145 

nize  that  wide  sympathy  is  at  once  the  natural  out- 
growth of  intellectual  progress  and  the  basis  of  morality; 
when  we  have  apprehended  this  truth  we  cannot  fail 
to  see  that  man's  progress  hi  civilization  must  in  the 
long  run  be  a  moral  progress. 

When  it  was  stated  above  that  a  normal  man  needs 
but  to  experience  moral  pleasures  to  prize  them  above 
all  others,  this  assertion  was  not  intended 
to  carry  with  it  the  implication  that  he 
°es   wno  nas  tested  moral  pleasure  becomes 
indifferent  to  purely  sensuous  and  other 
non-moral  pleasures.     The  being  of  whom 


potential!"6      this  were  true  would  not  be  a  normal  man. 


Food  and  drink  and  a  woman's  embraces 
are  st^  necessary  to  the  complete  happi- 
ness  of  civilized  man;  and  the  smell  of 
sweet  odours,  the  hearing  of  agreeable 
sounds,  and,  in  general,  the  due  exercise 
of  all  the  faculties  of  his  nature  —  non-moral  as  well  as 
moral  —  contribute  to  his  well-being.  And  it  is  also 
true  that  with  advancing  civilization  comes  the  possi- 
bility of  a  higher  degree  of  pleasure  from  certain  non- 
moral  sources  than  could  have  been  enjoyed  at  a  lower 
stage  of  human  development:  such  intellectual  pleasures 
as  are  afforded  by  the  advancement  of  science,  and 
many  of  our  higher  aesthetic  pleasures,  play  a  much 
greater  part  in  civilized,  than  they  could  in  primitive 
life;  and  the  love  of  power  can  find  opportunities  for 
gratification  in  the  great  world  of  civilization  that 
would  be  quite  impossible  in  the  narrow  circle  of  savage 
life.  But  all  these  non-moral  pleasures  are  themselves 


146  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

means  to  moral  enjoyment;  and  the  intelligent  man, 
knowing  of  these  moral  possibilities,  will  naturally  seek 
to  enhance  his  happiness  by  going  on  to  the  moral 
pleasures  to  which  the  non-moral  ones  may  contribute. 
The  man  of  vigorous  intellect  and  fine  artistic  taste, 
the  possessor  of  power  over  his  fellows,  can  double  the 
satisfaction  he  draws  from  these  advantages  by  using 
them  to  bring  happiness  to  his  fellows.  Every  pleasure 
can  be  enhanced  by  a  moral  association;  and  the  man 
of  real  wisdom,  whose  mind  has  been  enlarged  and  whose 
feelings  have  been  deepened  by  even  so  inadequate  a 
knowledge  of  the  Universe  as  is  possible  for  us  today, 
must  inevitably  grasp  after  these  moral  pleasures. 
Even  our  pleasure  in  food  and  drink,  in  fragrant  odours 
and  sweet  sounds,  is  increased  by  having  some  one  to 
participate  with  us  in  the  enjoyment  of  them.  And 
if  this  be  true  of  the  lower,  sensuous  pleasures,  how 
much  more  true  it  is  of  the  higher  ones!  How  slight 
the  pleasure  of  solving  a  physical  or  mathematical 
problem  the  solution  of  which  has  no  practical  value 
to  any  human  being,  as  compared  with  the  exhilaration 
of  solving  a  problem  the  solution  of  which  is  of  direct 
service  to  one's  fellow  beings!  And  what  is  true  in 
this  case  is  true  throughout — all  non-moral  pleasures 
may  be  enhanced  by  moral  associations. 

The  notion  that  if  men  were  allowed  to  please  them- 
selves their  lives  would  be  essentially  immoral,  is  fun- 
damentally false.  The  unnatural  monster  supposed  is 
as  untrue  to  life  as  the  inert  being  the  economists 
used  to  talk  about,  known  as  the  economic  man,  from 
whose  constitution  they  had  omitted  one  of  the 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY         147 

strongest  traits  of  human  nature,  —  characteristic  indeed 
of  most,  if  not  all,  highly  organized  being,  —  the  love  of 
exercise,  the  natural  impulse  to  exercise 
bSjiXSS8  tne  faculties  of  one's  nature  and  especially 
else  ofaiiethe~  to  engage  in  that  kind  of  activity  in  which 
s  one's  physical  or  mental  condition  fits  one 
-  to  succeed.  Of  the  Frankenstein  product 
furthSeererlsSuTe  of  tne  economist's  laboratory,  on  the  con- 
me?ei?ke0efping  trarv»  ^  was  supposed  that  he  would  never 
aid  m*vessin  ^  hand  or  foot  except  for  the  purpose  of 
tioi'dem^nd-'  picking  up  a  dollar,  and  that  the  extent  of 
shall  haveltahat  n^s  activity  would  be  in  inverse  proportion 
to  tne  square  of  his  distance  from  the  gold 
^e  on^v  raag116*  which  could  overcome 
^^S  mertia)  and  in  direct  proportion  to  its 


mands  moral     volume!    The  fact    is,   nevertheless,  that 

achievement. 

the  normal  human  being,  far  from  being 
inert,  delights  in  exercise,  —  although  of  course  this 
healthy  instinct  may  be  crushed  out  of  an  over- 
worked drudge,  and  although  a  being  endowed  with 
intellect  and  feelings  would  soon  lose  zest  for  physical 
exercise  carried  on  purely  for  its  own  sake.  And  this 
last  mentioned  consideration  is  not  without  bearing 
upon  the  relations  of  egoism  to  morality.  While  man's 
physical  nature  demands  the  exercise  of  various  muscles 
and  nerves,  his  intellectual  and  emotional  nature  de- 
mands the  achievement  of  some  farther  result  than 
that  of  merely  keeping  hi  healthy  condition  the  muscles 
and  nerves  brought  into  play.  The  most  enthusiastic 
lover  of  nature  and  of  physical  exercise  will  have  less 
zest  for  a  walk  through  a  charming  countryside,  blessed 


148  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

with  the  purest  of  air,  but  through  which  he  has  rambled 
day  after  day,  for  weeks  and  months,  merely  as 
a  physical  recreation,  than  he  will  for  a  new  walk  over 
a  road  much  less  agreeable  in  itself  but  at  the  end  of 
which  there  is  some  special  thing  for  him  to  accomplish. 
All  sensuous  and  non-moral  pleasures  in  the  world 
soon  pall  and  lose  most  of  their  charm  if  he  who  may 
enjoy  them  is  not  arriving  at  something,  if  he  cannot 
persuade  himself  that  he  is  doing,  accomplishing  some- 
thing. This  is  a  psychological  fact  that  needs  but  to 
be  stated  to  be  recognized  as  true.  The  observation, 
if  not  the  experience,  of  almost  every  adult  must  con- 
firm this.  But  there  is  another  fact  of  the  truth  of 
which  my  observation  has  convinced  me,  although  it 
may  not  at  first  blush  seem  so  indisputable  as  the 
preceding  one;  and  that  is  that  the  man  with  whom 
we  are  acquainted  (I  know  not  whether  it  could  be 
asserted  of  his  remote  ancestor  living  in  a  very  small 
group,  in  whom  the  social  instinct  was  less  developed) 
not  only  feels  the  need  of  accomplishing  something,  but 
sooner  or  later  he  becomes  very  much  bored  if  what  he 
accomplishes  has  no  value  for  any  one  but  himself.  He 
must  not  only  accomplish  something,  but  must  accom- 
plish something  the  value  of  which  will  be  recognized 
by  someone  besides  himself  (or,  hi  other  words,  some- 
thing which  has  a  moral  worth). 

It  is  true  that  the  inventor  or  scientific  discover 
may  continue  to  labor  away  at  that  to  which  no  one 
of  his  contemporaries  attributes  any  value;  but  this 
is  unquestionably  a  hardship  for  him,  depriving  him  of 
the  pleasure  and  stimulus  that  contemporary  appre- 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          149 

ciation  would  give;  and  he  finds  the  satisfaction  which 
sustains  him  in  his  work  in  the  thought  that,  when  he 
shall  have  succeeded,  his  work  will  have  a  value  for 
posterity  if  not  for  his  contemporaries.  It  is  true  also 
that  the  less  socially  developed  being  sometimes  con- 
trives for  a  while  to  quiet  this  altruistically-working 
part  of  his  egoism  by  petting  a  dog  or  by  making  pre- 
sents to  his  mistress.  But  this  rudimentary  altruism 
never  suffices  for  the  normal,  the  average  man.  Sooner 
or  later  the  altruistic-instmct-which-makes-a-part-of- 
of-his-egoism  must  lead  him  to  more  truly  social  and 
moral  activity.  The  rule  is  that  however  deeply  in- 
fatuated and  completely  lost  in  his  mistress  the  de- 
voted lover  may  be,  after  he  has  once  won  her  he  begins 
to  take  interest  in  other  things.  And  it  is  well  for  his 
happiness  in  his  marriage  that  this  is  so,  since  other- 
wise he  could  not  hold  his  wife's  love.  For  the  love 
of  a  human  being  is  much  more  than  lust.  The  latter 
is  non-moral  but  the  former  is  a  moral  emotion.  There 
must  be  moral  worth  as  well  as  physical  charm  in  what 
we  love.  However  gallant  a  cavalier,  and  though  he 
were  in  his  own  person  a  veritable  Adonis,  no  man 
could  hold  the  love  of  the  most  ordinary  woman,  much 
less  of  a  superior  one,  if  his  mind  and  heart  were  so  con- 
tracted, his  moral  nature  so  undeveloped,  that  he 
cared  nothing  for  the  interests  of  mankind  or  for  aught 
in  the  Universe  outside  of  his  lady's  boudoir. 

Take  it  from  what  point  we  may,  however  we  ap- 
proach the  subject,  the  truth  always  reappears  that 
since  he  is  a  social  being,  man  is  also  a  moral  being, 
and  that  in  proportion  as  he  is  really  true  to  his  own 


150  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

interests  will  he  be  true  to  those  of  mankind,  will  he  be 
loyal  to  morality. 

"To  thine  own  self  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man." 

It  seems  quite  clear  to  me  that  the  true  interests  of 

the  individual  man  and  of  the  whole  of  which  he  is  a 

part — whether  that  whole  be  family,  race, 

The  true  in-      nation,  mankind  or  the  universe — do  not 

terests  of  the 

individual  and    conflict;  and  that  the  same  thing  is  true 

of  the  whole  of  ° 

which  he  is  a     as  between  one  of  these  lesser  wholes  and 

part  are  identi-  . 

cai.  so  are  the  the  larger  whole  that  includes  it,  as  be- 

interests  of  all 

lesser  wholes  in  tween  the  people  of  a  city  and  those  of  the 

nature  with  the 

greater  whole    state,   or  as  between  the  people  of  one 

of  which  they  .  . 

are  a  part.  nation  and  the  commonwealth  of  nations 
with  which  it  has  relations.  So  far  as  one 
of  the  units  is  purely  artificial  or  accidental,  and  there- 
fore temporary,  and  its  interests  do  not  properly  re- 
present those  of  its  constituent  parts,  there  may  of 
course  be  a  conflict.  Thus  it  is  possible  that  the  inter- 
ests of  an  artificial  state,  such  as  the  conglomerate 
known  as  the  Austro-Hungarian  Monarchy,  might  not 
be  identical  with  the  best  interests  of  the  commonwealth 
of  civilized  nations  of  which  it  is  one  of  the  constituent 
parts;  but  the  true  interests  of  the  people  of  Austria, 
Hungary,  Bohemia,  Bosnia,  etc.,  would  nevertheless  be 
found  to  be  in  agreement  with  the  true  interests  of 
Europe  and  the  civilized  world  as  a  whole. 

But  our  interest  is  primarily  in  the  relation  between 
the  wellbeing  of  the  individual  man  and  that  of  the 
whole  of  mankind,  or  of  a  part  thereof  considered  as 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          151 

a  social  group.  Here,  while  there  may  be  a  conflict 
between  the  seeming,  the  superficially  estimated  inter- 
ests, there  can  be  no  conflict  between  the  true,  the 
higher  interests. 

As  bearing  upon  this  question,  we  must  not  forget 
that  it  is  from  his  higher  sensibilities,  including  his 
moral  affections  and  his  appreciation  of 
Not  in  mere  moral  beauty,  that  man  derives  his  great- 
en>Se?butf  est  happiness;  and  one  of  the  corollaries 
i«er!tnhfpp'i-  of  tl"8  is  that  ^  is  not  ™  kngth  of  days, 

ness  found.          but    fa  jyJlM88    of    life>    that    WC    find    OUF 

happiness.  Hence  it  is  that  even  when 
the  good  of  his  fellows  demands  that  an  individual 
shall  give  up  some  selfish  pleasure,  the  very  renunciation 
of  the  lower  pleasure,  which  cannot  be  innocently 
enjoyed  at  the  expense  of  his  fellows'  welfare,  opens 
the  way  into  a  larger  and  nobler,  and  therefore  a  hap- 
pier life,  of  which  perhaps  the  selfish  egoist  had  not 
previously  dreamed. 

And  further  than  this  there  is  the  consideration, 
too  often  ignored  by  the  preacher  of  self-sacrifice,  that 
a  seeming  good  to  the  social  whole  attained 
v  too  great  a  sacrifice  of  individual  inter- 


ai  is  hostile  to  ests  js  not  really  for  the  ultimate  advance- 

the  good  of  J 

those  for  whom  ment  of  the  social  whole  itself.     And  it 

the  sacrifice  is 


goes  without  saying  that  the  same  thing 
is  true  as  regards  the  sacrifice  of  one  in- 
dividual for  another.  This  is  the  truth  that  the  in- 
dividualistic school  of  social  philosophers  have  felt  so 
deeply  that  they  have  not  always  been  able  to  express 
it  with  due  moderation.  Take  an  extreme  case.  A 


152  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

community  might  be  raised  from  grinding  poverty 
into  a  high  degree  of  comfort  and  prosperity  by  redu- 
cing its  numbers  nearly  one  half.  The  shortest  and 
most  effective  way  to  do  this  might  be  to  kill  the  inferior 
nine-twentieths  of  the  population.  But  the  instinct 
of  humanity  which  would  prevent  such  a  drastic 
course  is  justified  also  by  considerations  of  expediency, 
when  expediency  is  considered  in  its  highest — which  is 
its  truest — sense.  For  "man  does  not  live  by  bread 
alone,"  and  a  material  prosperity  acquired  at  the  cost 
of  one's  finer  sensibilities  could  not  but  degrade  the 
community  it  was  intended  to  benefit,  and  in  large 
measure  unfit  its  members  for  the  highest  human 
development,  the  most  beautiful  lives.  Sooner  or 
later  it  would  be  found  that  the  seeming  benefit  carried 
with  it  a  curse,  and  that  the  community  would  really 
have  made  greater  progress  in  civilization  and  happiness 
had  it  not  taken  "the  short  cut."  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  probably  true  that  had  a  fairly  prosperous  com- 
munity lost  in  a  single  generation,  not  nine  twentieths, 
but  ten  twentieths  of  its  population,  and  these  not  the 
inferior,  but  the  better,  the  abler,  the  braver  and  more 
magnanimous  half,  in  the  course  of  a  struggle  against 
barbarous  and  blood-thirsty  foes  that  had  only  been 
prevented  from  annihilating  or  enslaving  the  communi- 
ty by  the  sacrifice  of  its  noblest  sons, — who  had  willing- 
ly laid  down  their  lives  in  this  cause, — in  this  case  the 
existence  of  the  remnant,  that  had  thus  been  preserved 
by  the  splendid  courage  and  perseverance  and  the 
noble  deaths  of  its  best  citizens,  would  be  so  lifted  up 
and  inspired  by  the  contemplation  of  the  heroism  of 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          153 

its  departed  brethren,  and  the  feeling  of  fellowship 
with  them,  that  this  inferior  half  of  the  original  com- 
munity would  rise  to  a  plane  of  material  and  spiritual 
civilization  and  a  condition  of  happiness  that  would  be 
not  inferior  to,  and  possibly  even  higher  than  that 
which  would  have  been  attained  by  the  whole  com- 
munity had  it  not  had  this  baptism  of  fire.  In  this 
latter  case,  although  half,  and  that  the  abler  half  of 
the  community,  is  gone,  and  has  in  one  sense  sacrificed 
itself  for  the  community,  yet  in  the  absolute  sense, 
because  this  sacrifice  was  a  voluntary  one,  it  was  no 
sacrifice  i.  e.  it  was  only  a  sacrifice  of  lower  to  higher 
satisfactions  (the  only  sense  in  which  voluntary  sacri- 
fice has  any  worth,  or  indeed  any  meaning).  Those 
who  sacrificed  their  lives  for  the  cause  were  happier, 
in  their  life  and  death  considered  as  a  whole,  than  had 
they  lived  longer  but  as  part  of  an  enslaved  com- 
munity. 

Thus  it  becomes  more  and  more  evident,  the  more 

earnestly  and  thoroughly  we  study  the  conditions  of 

t  „  .  life  and  the  constitution  of  the  Universe, 

The  Universe 

is  essentially     that  we  live  in  a  moral  world,  i.  e.,  hi  a 

moral  in  its  . 

constitution;      world  in  which  the  noblest  conduct  brings 

i.  e.  the  interests  .  < 

of  both  the        about  the  greatest  happiness,  not  alone 

individual  and  ~  ..... 

the  whole  of      for  the  world  at  large  but  for  the  individual 

which  it  is  a  . 

part,  of  both  the  actor.  1  he  true  mterests  of  the  part  and 
greater  unit,  the  whole  are  identical.  The  old  parable 
that  temperate  of  the  belly  and  the  members  applies  here. 
the  good  of  Neither  the  highest  development  of  the 

both  which  is        •      i  •    •  i       i  .  i_  t  •    .       •      •  i    • 

never  regard-    individual  nor  that  of  society  is  found  in 

the  sacrifice  of  the  other,  but  the  interest* 

of  both  the  part  and  the  whole,  of  the  less  and  the  greater 


154  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

unit,  are  found  in  that  moderate  endeavor  for  the  good 
of  both  which  is  never  regardless  of  either.  The  master 
mariners  of  the  ship  of  state  must  never  consider  any 
one  of  the  crew  as  a  mere  instrument  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  voyage.  The  success  of  the  voyage 
must  be  considered  with  reference  to  the  good  of  every 
soul  on  board.  It  is  right  that  as  individuals  we  should 
try  to  live  healthy  and  joyous  lives,  not  ashamed  to 
seek  our  own  happiness  (as  the  morbid  school  of  ethi- 
cists  would  have  us),  but  considerate  also  of  the  happi- 
ness of  others  as  well  as  of  ourselves,  and  remembering 
that  the  surest  foundation  for  our  own  individual 
happiness  is  the  happiness  and  wellbeing  of  mankind — 
and  indeed  of  all  in  the  universe  that  has  life,  so  far  as 
the  higher  development  of  life  is  not  conditioned  by 
the  destruction  of  lower  forms.  No  man  can  be  happy 
alone.  Not  he  who  stands  far  above  his  fellows  on  the 
top  of  a  pillar  is  the  happy  man,  but  he  whose  position 
is  at  the  apex  of  a  human  pyramid,  and  who  therefore 
has  companions  who  are  almost  on  an  equality  with 
him  in  richness  of  life,  while  these  again  are  in  direct 
sympathetic  relations  with  still  larger  numbers  who 
are  only  a  little  less  noble  and  happy  than  themselves, 
and  so  on  down  to  the  humblest,  the  least  gifted  of  our 
brethren.  That  seeming  elevation  which  would  lift 
a  man  out  of  touch  with  his  fellows,  and  make  com- 
munications with  them  difficult  or  impossible,  would 
be  conducive  neither  to  his  own  happiness  nor  to  human 
progress.  It  is  only  as  we  can  pull  others  up  with  us, 
share  with  them  the  benefits  of  our  elevation,  that  our 
elevation  is  desirable  either  for  ourselves  or  for  mankind. 
Picture  to  yourself  the  situation  of  an  unusually  gifted 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          155 

savage  educated  to  a  plane  of  intellectual  and  moral 
culture  that  makes  him  regardless  of  the  superstitions 
of  his  own  people  and  makes  him  writhe  at  the  con- 
templation of  the  cruelty  and  grossness  of  their  lives, 
if  he  were  left  alone  on  an  island  with  no  companions 
but  his  savage  fellow  tribesmen.  If  there  are  none 
standing  at  intermediate  stages  between  the  low  savag- 
ery, ignorance  and  superstitions  of  the  average  tribes- 
man and  the  level  of  our  poor  civilized  native,  there 
will  be  little  that  he  can  do  for  his  kinsmen  save  to 
afford  them  a  feast.  And  if  they  do  not  promptly 
put  an  end  to  his  troubles  by  eating  this  sacrilegious 
traitor  to  the  traditions  of  his  people,  how  sad  and 
lonely  his  life  must  be!  Something  of  the  tragedy  of 
such  a  lot  may  be  seen  in  the  case  of  our  more  highly 
educated  and  refined  Indians  and  Negroes,  who  by 
their  culture  and  our  race  feeling  are  largely  cut  off 
from  true  social  intercourse  both  with  their  own  race 
and  with  ours.  It  is  only  when  their  education  is  so 
true  and  broad  that  they  know  how  to  keep  in  touch 
with  the  less  educated  members  of  their  race,  and  to 
reach  down  to  them  and  draw  them  up,  that  they  find 
their  intellectual  and  aesthetic  superiority  a  blessing. 

As  regards  our  contention  that  intelligent  egoism 

must  be  moral,  there  is  one  point  of  view  that  has  hardly 

,.    .       been    suggested,  which  seems  conclusive. 

Immorality  is  ... 

always  intem-    Whatever   be   the   particular   instance   of 

perance,  and  as  . 

such  necessari-  immorality,  it  is  in  every  case  at  bottom 

ly  hostile  to  the    . 

health  and         intemperance  on  the  part  of  the  wrongdoer, 

happiness 

of  those  who      it  is  a  disturbance  of  that  fine  balance  of 

practice  it.  .        . 

life  which  is  dependent  upon  such  exercise 
of  and  enjoyment  from  each  of  the  faculties   of  our 


156  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

nature  as  shall  be  consistent  with  the  largest  possible 
exercise  and  enjoyment  of  all;  and  as  such  it  is  of 
course  prejudicial  to  happiness. 

There  is  still  another  aspect  of  the  relation  between 

happiness  and  morality,  to  which  I  would  now  direct 

attention.     If  we  make  a  further  refine- 

Egoistjc  and      ment  than  we  have  so  far  made,  and  con- 
hedonistic,  .    .  j.i 
altruistic  and     fine  the  term  egoistic  to  conduct  the  mo- 

moral  distin-  .  .  .  „        .  .   .      . 

guished.  live,  or  intention,  of  which  is  to  procure 

the  pleasure  or  happiness  of  the  individual, 
and  use  the  term  hedonistic,  or  pleasure-giving,  for 
such  conduct  as  actually  achieves  pleasure  or  happiness 
for  the  individual,  regardless  of  the  intention  that 
directed  it;  and  if  similarly  we  make  a  distinction  be- 
tween altruistic,  on  the  one  hand,  and  ethical  or  moral, 
on  the  other,  using  the  former  term,  altru- 
istic,  to  describe  conduct  that  has  for  its 
motive  the  welfare  of  mankind,  and  the 
"eegoautk''hcon-  latter,  moral,  for  conduct  that  actually  con- 
sdousaaitruistic  diices  to  the  welfare  of  mankind  (regard- 
Iess  of  the  motive  that  led  to  it),— we 
sna11  find' l  think,  that  "  altruistic  "  conduct 
ta^eouseegoism  *s  ^or  ^imi  wno  Practises  it  more  pleasure- 
^^normai  na-  giving,  or  hedonistic  (in  the  sense  hi  which 
we  have  just  agreed  to  use  that  term), 
than  consciously  "egoistic"  conduct.  And  I  should  not 
be  surprised  to  find  that  the  converse  were  also  largely 
true,  to  wit,  that  conscious  altruistic  striving  is  less 
"moral"  (beneficent  to  human  welfare  at  large)  in  its 
results  than  sane  and  healthy,  but,  being  natural  and 
spontaneous,  largely  unconscious  egoism. 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          157 

At  any  rate,  as  regards  the  last  suggestion,  I  have 
observed  that  the  sane  and  healthy,  cheerful,  uncon- 
scious egoist,  who  lives  his  or  her  own  life  joyously, 
with  hardly  a  thought  of  philanthropy  or  moral  obliga- 
tion, is  often  the  sunshine  of  a  community,  making  the 
lives  of  others  happier  and  more  wholesome;  while  the 
conscientious  but,  alas!  conscious  altruist,  controlled 
by  an  overmastering  sense  of  duty,  who  is  ever  anxious 
to  serve  you  and  the  world,  is  not  only  often  felt  to  be 
a  sad  affliction,  but  often  seems  in  fact  to  exercise  a 
less  beneficent  influence  upon  society  than  his  careless 
brother.  This  may  be  because  the  spontaneous  activi- 
ty of  a  normal  nature  will  usually  take  a  proper  direc- 
tion, and  our  instincts  are  often  a  better  guide  than 
reasonings  that  are  based,  as  the  latter  must  gener- 
ally be,  upon  incomplete,  imperfect  premises.  The 
conscious  ethicist  is  continually  asking  us  to  pause  and 
consider  whether  the  proposed  conduct  be  really  right; 
and  even  though  we  finally  decide  to  act  according  to 
the  original  impulse,  it  is  no  longer  with  the  same 
joyous  spontaneity;  and  the  constant  cross-examination 
of  our  impulses  tends,  I  think,  to  produce  a  morbid 
lack  of  confidence  in  our  own  natures,  which  is  preju- 
dicial to  healthy  morality.  Further  than  this,  the  being 
who  is  always  preferring  others  to  himself,  who  de- 
lights in  self-sacrifice,  is  an  unpleasant  companion  to 
the  normally  moral  nature,  which  would  prefer  "turn 
about"  in  the  matter  of  making  sacrifices  for  the  com- 
mon good,  and  would  rather  share  his  pleasures  with 
the  morbid  altruist  than  enjoy  them  at  his  expense; 
while  at  the  same  time  the  conduct  of  this  self-sacrificing 


158  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

individual  cultivates  the  habit  of  selfishness  in  those 
who  are  naturally  inclined  to  be  inconsiderate  of  others. 
Again,  though  the  cheerful  egoist  could  hardly  be 
induced  to  spend  an  hour  in  a  sick-room,  and  at  the 
mere  suggestion  makes  a  wry  face  and  tells  you  that 
sick-rooms  do  not  agree  with  his  constitution  and  that 
he  would  become  an  invalid  himself  if  he  had  to  stay 
in  one;  while  the  conscientious  altruist,  whose  private 
affairs  may  make  it  much  more  difficult  for  him  to  spare 
the  time,  willingly  spends  half  a  day  with  the  invalid, 
makes  every  effort  to  cheer  and  amuse  without  fatiguing 
him,  and  anxiously  seeks  to  anticipate  every  wish  and 
supply  every  want, — yet  how  often  it  happens  that 
when  our  light-hearted  egoist  does  drop  into  the  sick- 
room, and  with  no  more  than  a  genial  greeting  and 
a  pleasant  word  to  the  invalid  chats  for  a  few  minutes 
with  the  attendant  about  something  in  which  he  him- 
self (the  egoist)  happens  to  be  interested,  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  sick-room  is  transformed  by  his  cheery 
presence,  the  invalid  is  taken  out  of  himself  and  experi- 
ences a  mild  exhilaration;  and  when  the  doctor  visits 
him  he  is  surprised  to  find  the  improvement  in  the 
condition  of  the  patient  who  had  received  so  little  bene- 
fit from  the  kind  and  thoughtful  devotion  of  the  con- 
scientious altruist.  Perhaps  the  explanation  is  in  the 
fact  that  the  very  anxiety  of  the  latter  to  serve  and 
please  impresses  upon  the  patient  that  he  is  an  invalid 
whom  this  good  person  is  here  to  help,  while  the  cheer- 
ful confidence  of  the  light-hearted  egoist  in  the  pleasant- 
ness of  life,  and  the  fact  that  he  shows  no  especial 
interest  in  the  patient,  have  the  tonic  effect,  upon  the 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          159 

self-centered  invalid,  of  a  breath  of  fresh  air  from  the 
great  world  without.  Indeed  I  believe  that  those 
always  interest  and  help  us  most  who  lead  their  own 
lives,  not  those  who  try  to  live  ours. 

I  do  not  wish  to  overemphasize  the  truth  suggested 
by  such  facts  as  the  above.  But  that  they  are  facts,  I 
think  the  experience  and  observation  of  every  adult 
will  have  assured  him;  and  they  seem  to  me  to  suggest 
that  a  too  lively  consciousness  of  duty  and  of  the 
obligation  to  serve  others  may  have  a  tendency  to 
defeat  its  own  purpose  and  may  really  be  less  effective 
in  blessing  mankind  than  the  spontaneous,  uncon- 
sciously egoistic  activity  of  normal,  healthy  members 
of  society,  primarily  intent  upon  pursuing  their  own 
interest  and  enjoying  life  in  their  own  way.  I  say 
"normal,  healthy  members  of  society;"  for  to  such 
beings,  as  I  think  I  have  already  sufficiently  pointed 
out,  conduct  that  would  evidently  be  seriously  harmful 
to  others  would  in  general  give  more  pain  than  pleasure, 
and  such  conduct  they  would  spontaneously  avoid. 
But  it  is  doubtless  true,  nevertheless,  that  the  egoism 
of  a  being  below  the  normal  level  of  the  society  of  which 
he  is  a  member  tends  to  be  destructive  to  the  best 
interests  of  that  society,  by  reason  of  the  insensitiveness 
of  the  moral  nature  of  such  an  egoist. 

It  should  go  without  saying  that  the  extent  to  which 
egoistic  conduct  is  conducive  to  the  highest  interests 
of  mankind  is  dependent  upon  the  soundness  and 
sweetness  of  the  egoist's  nature.  Although  the  egoism 
of  a  healthy,  happy,  innocent  child,  who  in  his  enjoy- 
ment of  life  exhibits  little  or  no  regard  for  others  except 


160  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

as  they  contribute  to  that  enjoyment,  is  generally 
tonic  in  its  effect  upon  us  and  makes  life  brighter  for 
us,  yet  our  pleasure  is  certainly  increased  if  the  child's 
nature  is  not  only  sunny  but  sweet,  if  it  has  so  fine  a 
moral  nature  that  it  finds  a  great  deal  of  its  pleasure  in 
pleasing;  and  it  is  probably  true  that  the  cheerful 
egoist's  visit  to  the  sick-room  would  be  even  more 
beneficial  if  his  disposition  were  not  only  bright  and 
joyous  but  so  loving  and  kind  that  his  presence  would 
bring  home  to  others,  not  only  the  physical  beauty,  and 
the  opportunity  for  enjoyment  associated  therewith, 
which  the  world  has  to  offer  us,  but  also  the  wealth  of 
love  its  human  hearts  contain.  In  other  words,  egoism 
is  beneficial  to  the  world  at  large  in  proportion  as  the 
egoist's  nature  approximates  to  the  ideal  of  the  Schone 
Seele,  the  beautiful  soul  that  does  instinctively  and 
spontaneously  that  which  is  most  conducive  to  the 
highest  welfare  of  mankind.  But  even  though  the 
egoist's  nature  be  far  below  this  ideal,  if  he  be  intelli- 
gent and  well  informed  his  egoism  will  tend  toward 
morality. 

Let  us  remember  that  as  the  welfare  of  society  is 

dependent  upon  the  wellbeing  of  the  members  who 

compose  it,  and  as  it  would  be  very  un- 

ofhainsepro-mg  economical  of  time  and  effort,  and  hence 

™net>esda1ttendi£g  prejudicial  to  individual  and  general  wel- 

SS^SiSte!8  fare»  for  Mrs-  A  to  Prefer  tne  making  of 

Mrs.  B's  bed  to  the  making  of  her  own 

(it  certainly  would  not  be  practical  for  Mrs.  A  to  drink 

Mrs.  B's  coffee  for  her,  however  altruistically  disposed 

she  might  be),  morality  itself  confirms  the  naive  point 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          161 

of  view  of  the  individual,  which  makes  himself  the 
center  of  the  world  of  which  he  is  a  part.  Society  does 
not  hold  you  individually  responsible  for  the  welfare  of 
society  at  large,  although  it  of  course  expects  you  to  do 
nothing  actually  hostile  to  it  and,  more  than  this,  to 
help  it  along  as  far  as  you  can  do  this  consistently  with 
your  primary  duty.  But  it  does  hold  you  individually 
responsible  for  the  welfare  of  one  particular  member, 
yourself,  and  in  somewhat  less  degree  for  that  of  those 
most  immediately  dependent  upon  you.  It  demands 
that  you  shall  keep  that  one  individual  in  the  highest 
state  of  health  and  wellbeing  possible,  and  that  you 
shall  not  allow  him  or  those  who  may  naturally  look 
to  him  for  support  to  become  a  charge  upon  public  or 
private  charity.  Even  if  egoistic  inclinations,  then, 
were  not  in  that  direction,  a  man's  first  duty  would  be 
to  himself.  The  greater  one's  worth  to  society, — i.  e. 
the  better  he  is — the  more  imperative  is  this  duty  to 
himself.  The  conductor  of  a  polar  expedition  or  the 
competent  leader  of  any  body  of  men  exposed  to  diffi- 
culties requiring  exceptional  caution,  experience,  wis- 
dom and  courage  on  the  part  of  the  leader,  upon  whom 
the  welfare  of  a  ship-full  or  perhaps  of  hundreds  and 
even  thousands  of  human  beings  depends,  is  bound 
to  guard  his  own  life  and  health  with  exceptional  care. 
Under  normal  circumstances  the  general  who  takes  the 
troop-leader's  place  hi  the  front  line  of  battle  is  recreant 
to  his  duty.  But  while  such  cases  may  bring  more 
clearly  before  us  the  primary  moral  duty  to  one's  self 
that  one's  position  in  society  imposes  upon  him,  this 
duty  exists  in  all  cases.  Even  those  who  have  the 


162  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

least  capacity  for  serving  others,  who  are  physically  or 
intellectually  too  weak,  have  still  the  primary  duty  of 
taking  care  of  themselves  to  the  extent  of  their  power, 
of  doing  all  that  they  can  to  relieve  society  from  the 
burden  of  caring  for  them. 

Whether  or  not  it  be  true,  however,  that  conscious 
altruistic  striving  is  in  general  less  productive  of  whole- 
some morality  than  the  spontaneous  activity  of  normal, 
healthy  natures,  instinctively  seeking  the  satisfaction 
of  their  impulses,  it  seems  to  be  the  unanimous  opinion 
of  all  observers  that  the  individual  himself  attains  less 
happiness  when  his  conduct  is  controlled  by  the  deliber- 
ate purpose  of  securing  pleasure  for  himself  than  when 
he  is  working  for  some  moral  end  with  an  enthusiasm 
in  which  he  forgets  himself.  Nothing  is  more  trite — 
though  it  is  not  the  less  true  for  all  its  triteness — than 
the  observation  that  the  conscious  pleasure-seeker  is 
apt  to  be  the  most  discontented  of  human  beings.  The 
conscious  effort  to  extract  the  maximum  of  pleasure 
from  life  and  from  every  experience  therein,  and  to 
reject  all  possible  experiences  that  do  not  promise  a 
large  quantum  of  pleasure,  generally  begets  a  restless 
frame  of  mind,  which  leads  its  possessor  to  hurry  from 
one  occupation  to  another  because  he  feels  a  nervous 
dread  of  wasting  his  time  on  the  matter  he  has  just 
taken  in  hand  when  perhaps  something  else  might  give 
him  more  pleasure.  Imagine  a  butterfly  that  has  no 
sooner  alighted  upon  one  flower  than  he  is  attracted 
to  another,  and  so  flits  hungrily  from  one  to  another 
the  long  day  through,  without  getting  the  honey  from 
any  of  them,  and  you  have  a  picture  of  this  frame  of 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY         163 

mind.  Or  perhaps  the  unfortunate  result  of  this  ner- 
vous anxiety  to  get  at  the  pleasure-giving  elements 
in  human  experience  and  to  reject  everything  else,  may 
be  even  better  pictured  by  likening  the  too  eager 
pleasure-seeker  to  one  who  tears  a  rose  to  pieces  to  get 
at  its  fragrance,  and  thus  destroys  the  possibility  of 
fragrance  as  well  as  the  visual  beauty  that  he  might 
otherwise  have  enjoyed. 

In  the  discussion  just  preceding  we  have  come  dan- 
gerously  near   to   paradox.     We  have,    on   the   one 
hand,  suggested  the  possibility  that  conscious  altruism 
may  achieve  less  for  morality  (or  the  best 
ideal  conduct,    interests    of    man)    than   the   instinctive. 

both  from  the 

standpoint  of     unconscious    egoism    of    normal,    healthy 

morality  and 

from  that  of      natures :  and  have  asserted,  on  the  other 

happiness,  is 

that  of  the         hand,  that  conscious  egoistic  effort  will  do 

Beautiful 

Soul,"  which,     less  for  the  happiness  of  the  individual 

loving  to  dp  .  r 

that  which  is  than  self-forgetting  ethical  activity  on  his 
does  |;ood  in-  part.  Have  we  not  said  here  that  ethical 

stinctively  and  . 

spontaneously,    conduct  probably  produces  less  wellbeing 

not  under  the  f    . 

compulsion        than  egoistic  conduct,  and  then  asserted 

of  a  sense  of  °  .     . 

duty.  that  egoistic  conduct  produces  less  well- 

being  than  ethical  conduct?  No,  we  have 
not:  and  that  we  have  not  been  guilty  of  a  paradox  is 
true,  not  merely  because  in  the  first  place  we  spoke  of 
the  wellbeing  of  the  social  whole  and  in  the  second 
place  of  the  wellbeing  of  the  individual  actor,  but  be- 
cause (although  my  imperfect  choice  of  terms  may  have 
failed  to  make  this  as  clear  as  it  should  be  made)there 
is  a  difference  between  the  conscious  altruism  spoken 
of  in  the  former  hypothesis  and  the  self-forgetting 


164  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

ethical  activity  referred  to  in  the  later  assertion.  By 
the  former  term  I  sought  to  express  the  self-conscious 
subordination  of  self  to  others  from  a  sense  of  duty; 
and  by  the  latter,  the  spontaneous  attempt  to  achieve 
a  moral  end  because  of  one's  inclination  thereto,  not 
from  any  sense  of  duty  or  with  any  sense  of  self-sacri- 
fice. What  both  limbs  of  the  seeming  paradox  have 
really  agreed  in  suggesting  is  the  truth  of  the  ideal  of 
the  beautiful  soul,  Schiller's  schone  Seele,  as  against  the 
more  widely  accepted  notion  of  Kant,  that  there  is  no 
moral  worth  in  any  conduct  that  is  not  adopted  in 
obedience  to  the  sense  of  duty.  This  Kantian  notion 
seems  anything  but  true.  On  the  contrary,  the  study 
of  life  seems  to  show  us  that  love,  not  duty,  is  the 
source  of  that  which  is  best;  and  that  pleasure  is  the 
natural  accompaniment  of  the  free  exercise  of  our  facul- 
ties (physical,  mental  and  emotional),  and  is  great, 
rising  into  happiness,  in  proportion  as  we  live  largely, 
not  spending  all  our  strength  in  the  exercise  of  one  or 
a  very  few  of  the  activities  possible  for  us,  but  living, 
up  to  the  possibilities  of  our  manhood  by  such  a  tem- 
perate exercise  of  each  of  the  faculties  of  our  nature  as 
shall  make  possible  the  largest  exercise  of  all,  and  thus 
enable  us  to  enter  into  the  most  sympathetic  relations 
with  all  that  the  Universe  contains.  It  would  seem 
that  for  those  who  are  neither  the  mere  means1  to  a  high 
civilization,  from  the  actual  participation  in  which  they 

*As  was  largely  the  case  with  the  lower  class  of  slaves  hi  Greece, 
and  as  is  in  a  measure  the  case  with  the  drudge  of  today,  the  hardships 
of  whose  position  largely  prevent  the  widening  of  the  intellectual 
horizon  and  the  accompanying  enlargement  of  one's  sympathies 
which  are  characteristic  of  true  civilization. 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          165 

are  very  largely  excluded,  nor  its  mere  parasites?  the 
egotistic  impulse  will  tend  to  produce  moral  conduct  in 
proportion  as  the  civilization  in  which  the  individual 
participates  is  high: — not  only  because  the  material 
and  non-moral  means  of  enjoyment  demanded  by  a 
civilized  man  are  dependent  upon  the  wellbeing  of  the 
society  in  which  he  lives,  and  his  fellows  are  disposed 
to  resent  and  punish  anything  that  they  understand 
to  be  hostile  to  the  general  welfare,  but  also  because 
the  highest  (i.  e.,  the  greatest)  pleasure  (for  a  civilized 
human  being,  at  any  rate)  comes  from  the  gratifica- 
tion of  our  social  affections,  which  lead  us  to  take  de- 
light in  producing  happiness,  and  the  satisfaction  of 
our  intellectual  cravings  for  knowledge,  which  make 
us  truthseekers. 

It  is  in  the  central  importance  of  love,  of  sympathetic 
interest,  as  at  once  the  source  of  our  greatest  happi- 
ness and  the  most  efficient  motive  in  producing  what  is 
morally  best,  that  we  find  the  explanation  of  the  fact 
that  in  the  case  of  the  individual  who  is  consciously 
striving  to  obtain  self-gratification,  whose  conduct  has 
as  its  deliberate  purpose  the  production  of  pleasure 

2As  is  characteristically  the  case  with  many  Oriental  princes  of 
our  own  day,  whose  wealth  and  power  enable  them  to  attain  a  super- 
ficial acquaintance  with  western  civilization  and  to  appropriate  many 
of  its  material  advantages,  while  they  are  prevented  from  making  its 
higher  gains  their  own  by  the  self-sufficiency  which  arises  out  of  their 
traditions  of  irresponsible  lordship  over  a  more  or  less  completely 
enslaved  population  and  out  of  then*  lack  of  true  moral  and  intellec- 
tual culture,  since  no  one  can  appropriate  the  best — t.  e.  the  emotional 
and  intellectual  elements — of  a  civilization  in  which  his  own  emotional 
and  intellectual  life  is  not  a  factor:  and  as  is  true  in  less  degree  of  some 
who  are  born  in  the  midst  of  a  high  civilization  but  who  are  shut 
off  by  adventitious  circumstances  (extraordinary  eminence  in  wealth 
and  social  position  perhaps)  from  a  living  sympathy  with  it. 


166  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

for  himself,  not  only  is  his  pleasure  diminished  by  his 
morbid  attention  to  the  emotions  that  are  to  be  aroused 
within  him  by  his  action, — this  morbid  attention  to  the 
result  to  be  attained  being  hostile  to  that  free  play  of 
the  faculties  to  which  pleasure  is  incident, — but  his 
constant  attention  to  himself  really  makes  it  impossible 
that  he  should  feel,  to  any  considerable  extent,  those 
emotions  that  are  the  sources  of  the  highest  pleasure. 
If  he  gazes  at  a  beautiful  landscape,  not  because  it  is 
beautiful,  but  because,  being  beautiful,  he  expects  it 
to  give  him  pleasure,  he  can  but  half  enjoy  the  land- 
scape, since  his  attention  is  divided  between  it  and 
himself;  and  so  it  is  if  he  works  at  a  problem  in  physics 
not  because  he  craves  to  know  what  the  truth  of  the 
matter  is,  but  because  he  believes  that  this  exercise  of 
his  intellectual  faculties  should  give  him  pleasure;  and 
still  more  true  is  it  that  if  he  undertakes  some  service 
to  humanity,  not  because  his  love  of  his  fellows  irre- 
sistibly impels  him  to  it,  but  because  he  is  intellectu- 
ally convinced  that  he  will  derive  pleasure  from  serving 
his  fellows,  he  gets  but  a  faint  shadow  of  the  pleasure 
that  would  have  accompanied  activity  of  the  same 
sort  objectively  considered,  but  that  from  the  subjec- 
tive point  of  view  would  have  differed  immeasurably 
from  this,  in  that  it  would  be  prompted  by  love  of  his 
fellows  instead  of  by  the  selfish  desire  to  enjoy  the 
pleasure  of  contemplating  one's  self  in  the  light  of  a 
philanthropist.  Is  not  this  the  teaching  of  the  First 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians?  "Though  I  give  my  body 
to  be  burned,  and  have  not  love,  it  profiteth  me  noth- 
ing!" A  European  sold  into  slavery  by  pirates  may 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY         167 

under  compulsion  render  valuable  service  to  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  is  placed.  He  has  served  humanity 
but  he  has  no  tithe  of  the  pleasure  in  this  achievement 
that  he  would  have  had  in  a  similar  service  freely  per- 
formed for  fellow  beings  whom  he  loved.  And  the  ser- 
vice to  humanity  of  the  man  who  adopts  "philan- 
thropy," not  from  love  to  his  fellows,  but  because  he 
is  convinced  that  this  is  the  road  to  happiness  for  him- 
self,  is  lacking  in  the  essential  element  of  joy-giving 
power — the  love  of  the  action  itself — as  truly  as,  al- 
though doubtless  in  less  degree  than,  the  service  of 
the  slave. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  say,  however,  that  moral  con- 
duct deliberately  adopted  by  a  cool-headed  egoist  for 
the  pleasure  it  will  give  him,  will  wholly  fail  of  the 
desired  effect.  If  a  man  has  sufficient  culture  to 
forsee  the  hedonistic  value  of  such  conduct,  it  is  un- 
questionable, not  only  that  the  contemplation  of  the 
beautiful  landscape  and  the  work  upon  the  solution  of 
the  problem  in  physics,  but  also  that  the  "philan- 
thropic" conduct,  will  give  him  real  and  considerable 
pleasure, — and  the  last  will  probably  give  him  the 
greatest  pleasure;  for  it  is  inconceivable  that  a  man  to 
whom  such  a  means  of  achieving  pleasure  should  com- 
mend itself,  should  be  wholly  devoid  of  affection  for 
his  fellows,  as  impossible  as  that  he  should  be  wholly 
lacking  in  aesthetic  taste  and  intellectual  curiosity; 
but  the  pleasure  he  will  get  will  be  but  a  fraction  of 
what  it  would  have  been  had  he  forgotten  himself  and 
done  these  things  for  the  love  of  doing  them. 

The  above  considerations  will  help  us  to  understand 


168  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

how  it  is  that  the  recipient  of  a  benefit  may  possibly 
be  less  helped  by  it  when  it  was  prompted  by  altruisic 
considerations,  by  the  thought  that  it  was  right  to 
confer  this  benefit,  by  the  sense  of  duty  on  the  part  of 
the  benefactor,  than  by  a  benefit  that  should  come 
as  an  incident  to  the  natural  satisfaction  of  the  bene- 
factor's egoistic  impulses.  The  caresses  and  thought- 
ful attentions  of  an  adult  who  feels  that  it  is  her  duty 
to  do  everything  in  her  power  to  lighten  the  burdens 
of  life  for  an  unfortunate  young  woman  who  is  so  de- 
formed as  to  be  no  less  an  object  of  horror  than  of  pity 
to  most  of  her  fellow  beings,  including  even  the  kind 
friend  whose  strong  sense  of  duty  alone  enables  her  to 
so  far  overcome  her  physical  repulsion  as  to  caress  the 
unfortunate  and  remain  in  her  presence, — these  caresses 
and  attentions  will  probably  contribute  less  to  the 
happiness  of  the  deformed  creature  than  the  caresses 
and  awkward  services  of  a  little  child  who  caresses  and 
waits  on  the  unfortunate  just  because  she,  the  child, 
really  loves  to  be  snuggled  in  the  arms  of  the  hunch- 
back and  to  listen  to  her  fairy  tales.  The  child's 
motive  is  egoistic,  its  purpose  hedonistic,  its  aesthetic 
sensibilities  hi  the  direction  in  question  are  so  little 
developed  that  the  deformed  girl  seems  to  it  only  a 
little  queer  and  interesting;  and  as  it  thoroughly  enjoys 
being  petted  and  made  much  of  and  entertained  with 
beautiful  stories,  it  runs  away  from  its  nurse  and  into 
the  arms  of  the  hunchback  at  every  opportunity;  and 
this  purely  egoistic  conduct  on  its  part  probably  gives 
our  unfortunate  the  happiest  moments  of  her  life, — a 
pleasure  that  cannot  be  produced  by  the  deft  services 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          169 

and  kind  caresses  of  the  friend  who  is  actuated  by  a 
purely  ethical  motive,  and  who  disregards  the  natural 
impulses  of  a  nature  peculiarly  sensitive  to  the  repul- 
siveness  of  physical  ugliness,  in  order  to  contribute  to 
the  welfare  of  the  society  in  which  she  lives. 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  conduct  moral  hi  its  out- 
come that  is  mainly  altruistic  in  its  motive,  and  not 
accompanied  by  lively  hedonistic  satisfaction,  succeeds 
less  perfectly  in  producing  its  moral  result  than  con- 
duct likewise  having  a  moral  outcome  but  achieved 
without  conscious  altruistic  intent, — for  much  the  same 
reason  that  conduct  hedonistic  in  its  outcome,  but 
which  was  the  result  of  deliberate  egoistic  calculation, 
is  less  perfectly  hedonistic  than  conduct  having  a  some- 
what similar  hedonistic  outcome  but  springing  from 
self-forgetting  ethical  impulses.  The  reason  is  that 
that  is  best  done  which  is  done  for  the  love  of  doing  it  (and 
not  for  the  love  either  of  self  or  of  others),  as  an  end  in 
itself,  not  as  the  means  to  some  ulterior  end;  that  is 
most  perfectly  done  which  is  done  instinctively  and 
spontaneously  rather  than  deliberately  as  the  result  of 
a  process  of  ratiocination;  that  conduct  is  most  pro- 
ductive of  happiness,  both  for  the  actor  and  for  man- 
kind, which  is  reasonable  (i.  e.,  in  harmony  with  the 
laws  of  nature  and  tending  to  produce  the  desired 
result)  rather  than  reasoned.  For  although  the  extent  to 
which  man  can  adapt  means  to  an  end  is  the  evidence 
of  his  superiority  over  the  lower  animals,  which,  with 
little  reasoning  power,  must  generally  go  to  the  wall 
when  their  instincts  are  inadequate  and  fail  to  meet 
the  situation  in  which  they  find  themselves;  and  al- 


170  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

though  the  exercise  of  this  power  (as  of  all  the  other 
faculties  of  his  nature)  affords  its  peculiar  pleasure, 
which  in  this  case  is  a  very  high  one;  yet  the  exercise 
of  the  reason  in  the  conscious  adaptation  of  means  to  a 
desired  end  is  essentially  a  method  of  meeting  such  new 
difficulties  in  man's  environment  as  his  constitution  is 
not  yet  perfectly  adapted  to:  and  this  means  that  the 
conscious  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end  is  an  evidence 
of  the  imperfection  of  man's  adaptation  to  the  situation 
which  confronts  him;  for  he  is  never  perfect  master  of 
the  situation  till  he  meets  it  instinctively,  without  hav- 
ing to  think  out  the  suitable  line  of  conduct  (just  as 
the  pianist  is  not  master  of  his  instrument  so  long  as 
he  must  think  what  parts  of  the  keyboard  he  must 
strike  to  produce  a  given  combination  of  sounds  and 
how  he  must  manage  his  hands  to  strike  these  notes). 
Thus  again  we  are  brought  to  the  conclusion  that 
ideal  conduct,  both  from  the  moral  and  from  the  hedon- 
istic standpoint,  is  only  possible  for  the 
in  proportion  schone  Seele,  the  beautiful  soul  that  does 

to  man's  mtel-     ...  •        •    i       i  •      /•      i 

ligenceandto     instinctively  what  is  right  because  it  finds 

his  knowledge  .  ,  -r.  i  «i 

of  the  actual      its  happiness  in  such  conduct.     But  while 

conditions  of  •  •      i      •'    i        i  •  <•  i 

life  will  his  con-  the  ideal  oi  the  beautiful  soul  may  never 

duct,  objective- 

ly  considered,     be    perfectly   realized,    let   us   not   forget 

approach  that 

of  the  beautiful  that  all  reasonable  conduct  approximates 
his  motive  be     to  it,  whether  it  proceeds  from  the  stand- 

the  sense  of  .  ,  ..  .     ,  .  . 

duty  or  the  de-  point  of  morality    or    of    happiness.     Al- 
ness.  though   he   who   seeks    to    do    good    be- 

cause it  is  his  duty  and  not  because  he 
loves  to  do  good,  is  less  perfect,  less  loving  and 
wise,  than  he  of  the  beautiful  soul  whose  natural 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY         171 

love  of  the  good  leads  him  to  perfect  action,  and  al- 
though therefore  the  former's  ethical  conduct  will  give 
him  less  happiness,  and  will  less  perfectly  achieve  the 
moral  good  sought  for,  than  the  conduct  of  the  latter, 
yet  this  striving  of  an  intelligent  being  for  moral  ends 
must  benefit  mankind  to  some  extent,  and  it  is  also 
true  that  this  beneficence  of  a  moral  being  must  give  no 
little  pleasure  to  the  benefactor  himself,  must  tend  to 
make  him  happy.  The  man  who  so  acts  will  learn 
the  meaning  of  the  teaching  that  he  who  is  ready  to 
lose  his  life  shall  find  it.  And  on  the  other  hand,  al- 
though he  whose  conduct  is  directed  by  the  search 
for  personal  happiness,  and  to  whom  the  good  of  the 
rest  of  the  world  is  a  secondary  matter,  may  experience 
something  of  the  truth  of  the  saying  that  he  who  would 
save  his  life  shall  lose  it,  inasmuch  as  his  pleasure  in 
all  that  he  does  and  experiences  will  be  greatly  diminish- 
ed by  his  morbid  attention  to  himself  and  his  own 
emotions,  yet  hi  proportion  to  his  intelligence  must  he 
seek  his  happiness  along  moral  lines,  and,  doing  so,  he 
will  both  secure  some  pleasure  for  himself  and  accom- 
plish something  for  the  moral  wellbeing  of  the  world. 
In  other  words,  in  proportion  to  a  man's  intelligence 
and  to  his  knowledge  of  the  actual  conditions  of  life 
will  his  conduct,  objectively  considered,  approach  that 
of  the  "beautiful  soul,"  whether  his  motive  be  the 
sense  of  duty  or  the  desire  for  happiness. 

If  this  be  true, — and  of  its  truth  I  feel  as  sure  as  of 
my  own  existence, — what  a  helpful  truth  it  is  for 
humanity,  and  how  important  it  is  that  mankind  should 
be  educated  to  appreciate  it!  What  a  burden  its  re- 


172  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

cognition  would  lift  from  the  heart  of  many  a  sad-faced 

preacher  of  duty,  and  what  an  illumination  it  would 

throw  upon  the  path  of  the  seeker  after 

Hence  the  im-  happiness!     When,  instead  of  resting  our 

portance  of  ex-    ,    .  ,  . 

ercising  ail  our    faith  upon  the  tradition  of  our  ancestors 

faculties  in  the 

effort  to  gain      and  making  of  our  practical  life  a  waver- 

the  most  per-       .  . 

f ect  comprehen-  mg,  unworthy   compromise    between    the 

sion  of  the  uni- 

verse.  acceptance    of   the    selfish    maxims   of    a 

superficial  empiricism,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  obedience  to  an  alleged  miraculous  revelation,  on 
the  other,  we  shall  awaken  to  the  importance  and  the 
dignity  of  life  here  and  now  and  shall  look  existence 
frankly  in  the  face,  not  seeking  for  miraculpus  guidance 
nor  depending  upon  authority, — even  though  it  be  the 
authority  of  the  wisest  and  best,  the  noblest  and  most 
loving  being  that  ever  walked  the  earth, — but  rather 
going  ourselves  to  the  fountain  of  truth  and  source  of 
all  true  inspiration,  and  seeking  in  the  great  Book  of 
Nature,  wherein,  and  wherein  alone,  it  is  written  hi 
characters  of  living  light,  the  revelation  of  the  nature 
and  will  of  that  Eternal  Existence  in  which  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being, — then  and  only  then  shall  we 
learn  to  live  aright! 

Then,  among  other  things,  we  shall  learn  for  our- 
selves (and  what  we  learn  for  ourselves  we  act  upon) 
that  the  truth  expressed  in  the  New  Testa- 
§r  the°rightves  ment  with  such  poetic  force  is  a  truth  for 
power'never      every-day  life,  finding  its  realization  here 
htppfnesSshto  so  and  now> — that  he  who  shall  strive  for  the 
cr°eafesbit.in"     rignt  TOth  a11  his  heart>  wil1  not  sacrifice 
his  happiness  by  so  doing,  but  will  increase 
it;  and  that  he  who  would  enjoy  life  to  the  uttermost 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY         173 

will  not  have  to  throw  his  finer  scruples  aside,  but  that 
his  life  will  be  rich  and  happy  in  proportion  as  he  is  true 
to  his  highest  spiritual  insights. 

Many  of  us  have  gotten  far  enough  to  admit  this 
as  an  abstract  intellectual  truth,  but  few  of  us  have 
yet  come  to  feel  its  truth  so  deeply  that  we  are  ready 
to  trust  the  guidance  of  our  lives  to  it.  Practically  we 
are  infidels;  this  is  one  of  the  truths  as  to  which  we 
feel,  with  George  Eliot's  Mr.  Brooke,  that  "it  won't  do 
to  carry  it  too  far."  "A  man  who  would  succeed 
in  life,"  we  say,  "must  not  be  too  scrupulous."  But 
what  is  success?  In  what  shall  we  succeed  by  stifling 
our  finest  feelings?  In  gaining  material  wealth,  the 
possession  of  which  we  have  neither  the  wisdom  nor 
the  virtue  to  enjoy  properly:  or  in  gaining  the  reputa- 
tion of  power,  without  the  reality,  since  we  may  not 
wield  for  moral  ends  the  brittle  sceptre  that  has  been 
acquired  and  is  held  upon  condition  of  pandering  to 
the  evil  hi  our  fellows?  Surely  that  only  is  worthy  of 
the  name  of  success  which  makes  life  richer,  larger, 
nobler,  sweeter, — and  this  we  can  achieve  only  in  pro- 
portion as  we  develop  the  best  that  is  in  us,  not,  like 
the  foolish  ascetic,  wholly  ignoring  the  fundamental 
physical  demands  of  our  nature,  or  seeking  to  crucify 
the  flesh  in  the  interest  of  the  spirit,  but  exercising  our 
lower  (that  is,  our  more  purely  physical)  faculties  in 
such  moderation  as  shall  be  consistent  with  the  exer- 
cise and  development  of  the  highest  faculties  of  our 
nature,  that  thus  we  may  attain  to  that  large  sympathy 
with  all  that  is  which  shall  make  us  wise,  loving  and 
fearless. 


174  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

I  am  no  optimist.  Whether  or  not  this  is  the  best 
of  all  possible  worlds,  seems  to  me  a  silly,  meaningless 
question.  We  have  not  to  do  with  a 
number  of  possible  worlds  but  with  the 
one  Universe  as  it  is.  But  my  study  of 
i^nce^evii  reality,  of  psychological  law  on  the  one 
condition  of  a  hand  and  of  physical  law  on  the  other,  has 
SSSS  ST  made  me  a  meliorist.  Evil  exists;  and  so 
happi?rerthed  l°ng  a8  conscious  individuals  have  a  part 
pafh?es°andythe  to  Play  in  the  Universe  I  am  disposed  to 

jfves6  m°ral  °Ur  tm"nk  tnat   Jt  must  exist:   since  evil  i8  tne 

name  we  give  to  relations  wherein  one  is 
not  in  complete  harmony  with  his  environment,  and 
life  itself  in  all  its  myriad  functions  seems  but  to  be  the 
continual  re-adaptation  of  the  individual  to  the  sur- 
rounding conditions,  without  which  constant  necessity 
for  re-adaptation  life  would  lose  its  meaning — we  would 
have  only  that  negative  state  of  existence  for  which 
the  Buddhist  has  given  us  the  name  Nirvana.  Let  us 
not  forget  that  happiness  comes  to  us  from  the  exer- 
cise of  the  faculties  of  our  nature  (physical,  emotional 
and  intellectual),  and  in  no  other  way.  Not  by  getting 
into  a  luxurious  alcove  in  which  he  shall  be  secure  from 
the  turmoil  of  life,  not  in  standing  on  an  elevated 
platform  and  viewing  the  struggle  of  life  from  a  safe 
distance,  but  through  the  most  active  participation 
in  life,  does  man  find  his  happiness.  Evil  exists,  and 
no  man,  I  think,  may  expect  perfect  satisfaction;  but 
the  Universe  is  so  constituted  that  hi  the  struggle  for 
existence — which  is  life  itself  and  not  an  evil,  although 
conditioned  by  the  existence  of  evil — we  shall  be  the 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          175 

more  successful  the  wider  our  outlook,  the  more  com- 
pletely our  conduct  brings  us  into  harmony  with  all 
that  is,  the  more  perfect  our  co-operation  with  others, 
— in  a  word,  the  more  moral  our  lives. 

My  meliorism  is  further  supported  by  the  conviction 
that  those  who  are  not  yet  high  enough  in  the  scale  of 

being  to  be  instinctively  virtuous  will  be- 
w  come  more  virtuous  in  proportion  as  their 

intelligence  is  (symmetrically)  developed 
e;  and  their  knowledge  becomes  wider  and 
x-  deeper.  Such  increase  in  knowledge  and 

wisdom  will  indubitably  be  accompanied 

by  more  perfect  emotional  responsiveness. 
"    Most  of  the  immoral  conduct  that  is  not 
™"  merely  the  instinctive  expression  of  racial 
control'01 8eM"    na^its  acquired  in    an  earlier    day,  when 

such  conditions  were  more  beneficial  than 
harmful,  results  from  an  imperfect  comprehension  of 
the  evil  it  may  cause,  from  a  failure  to  understand  why 
the  conduct  is  wrong,  from  the  undeveloped  condition 
of  the  imaginative  power  and  emotional  sensitiveness 
of  the  wrong-doer,  who  is  really  incapable  of  picturing 
to  himself  distant  or  remote  evil,  either  to  others  or  to 
himself,  with  sufficient  vividness  to  give  it  appreciable 
magnitude  in  comparison  with  the  immediate  good  to 
himself  that  occupies  the  foreground  of  his  conscious- 
ness. The  harm  he  does  to  others  and  the  eventual 
injury  to  himself  often  appear  to  him  of  no  greater 
weight  than  the  killing  of  a  few  mosquitoes  would  to 
a  humane  man  who  should  thus  defend  himself  against 
the  ravages  of  the  little  pests.  In  each  case  the  evil  is 


176  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

regarded  by  its  perpetrators  as  a  necessary  evil,  a  mere 
trifle  in  comparison  with  the  good  which  the  perpe- 
trator is  thereby  enabled  to  attain  for  himself. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  we  need  be  morally  dis- 
couraged even  though  it  be  admitted  that  there  are 
men  who  find  more  pleasure  in  the  gratification  of  their 
lower,  non-moral  appetites,  yes,  in  the  intemperate, 
and  therefore  immoral,  gratification  of  their  animal 
appetites,  than  in  any  kind  of  moral  activity.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  anything  that  a  man  does  which 
gives  him  any  pleasure,  gives  him  more  pleasure  than 
that  which  he  does  not  do!  As  yet  these  men  have  not 
had  the  experience  of  moral  conduct  that  would  ac- 
quaint them  with  the  pleasure  to  be  derived  therefrom. 
Even  if  we  should  compel  them  to  conduct  moral  in  its 
outcome,  it  would  not  be  altruistic  conduct  on  their  part; 
and  so  long  as  they  should  act  in  this  way  under  com- 
pulsion, they  could  not  derive  that  emotional  satis- 
faction from  the  doing  of  the  thing  in  question  which 
gives  to  moral  conduct  its  highest  hedonistic  value, 
and  it  would  doubtless  take  considerable  time  for  them 
to  learn  the  practical  physical  advantage  to  themselves 
of  having  conducted  themselves  morally.  It  may, 
however,  at  first,  seem  fatal  to  our  melioristic  convic- 
tion, to  have  to  admit  that  men  of  relatively  high  (but 
certainly  warped)  intellectual  power,  and  having  un- 
usual knowledge  along  certain  lines,  or  a  knowledge 
of  the  world  at  large  that  is  really  quite  wide  but  not 
profound,  seem  sometimes  to  prefer  to  moral  conduct 
the  gratification  of  their  ambition  or  of  some  of  their 
animal  passions,  even  at  the  expense  of  others.  But 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          177 

even  such  a  case  is  largely  one  of  ignorance,  of  an  un- 
fortunate habit  as  to  the  direction  in  which  to  look  for 
happiness,  and  partly  also  a  case  of  deficient  intelli- 
gence. If  the  knowledge  of  reality  possessed  by  these 
men,  exact  as  it  may  be  so  far  as  it  goes,  were  wider,  or 
if,  wide  as  it  may  be,  it  were  profounder;  if  their  intelli- 
gence, instead  of  being  highly  developed  along  certain 
lines  alone,  were  thoroughly  sane,  symmetrical  and 
healthy;  or  if  they  could  once  be  gotten  into  the  habit 
of  moral  conduct,  so  that  they  should  know  from  ex- 
perience the  happiness  to  be  derived  therefrom, — it 
seems  to  me  certain  that  they  would  prefer  the  moral 
to  the  immoral  life. 

The  moral  outlook  for  man  is,  then,  a  hopeful  one; 
for  it  is  true,  as  Socrates  maintained,  that  men  may  be 
made  more  moral  by  education,  if  only  that 
e*  term  De  understood  hi  its  true  sense, — 
the  development  and  cultivation,  not  of 
the  intellect  alone,  but  of  the  physical, 
emotional  and  intellectual  nature,  by  pro- 
viding suitable  exercise  for  the  health  and  efficiency  of 
the  body,  and  by  enlarging  the  intellectual  horizon  and 
strengthening  and  purifying  the  emotions,  while  guid- 
ing them  into  right  channels,  through  the  presentation 
to  our  young  of  such  an  outline  and  synopsis  of  human 
achievements  in  art  and  science  as  shall  give  them  an 
approximately  true  Weltanschauung,  as  shall  give  them 
a  fairly  adequate  idea  of  what  has  so  far  been  learned 
as  to  the  individual  man's  relations  to  the  several 
wholes  of  which  he  is  a  part, — the  family,  the  race,  the 
state,  the  commonwealth  of  civilized  nations,  mankind, 


178  RELIGIO   DOCTORIS 

the  organic  world,  the  Universe  itself, — and  as  to  the 
nature  of  that  Universe,  its  variety  and  its  beauty,  its 
wonderful  complexity  and  yet  its  uniformity  as  exhibited 
in  the  laws  of  nature.  Such  an  education  alone — one 
that  shall  care  for  the  body  and  feed  the  mind — can 
contribute  to  healthy  moral  development.  Morality 
that  is  purely  traditional,  or  that  has  to  be  taught 
directly  as  such,  and  that  does  not  find  its  confirmation 
in  the  feelings  that  spring  out  of  a  knowledge  of  the 
Universe  and  of  our  relations  to  the  various  parts  of 
this  all-embracing  whole,  is  necessarily  inferior,  and  is 
likely  to  be  either  wooden  or  fantastic.  The  idea  of 
"teaching  morality"  by  itself,  of  awakening  healthy 
moral  sentiment  that  shall  not  be  based  upon  a  sym- 
pathetic appreciation  of  the  relation  of  the  individual 
to  society  and  to  the  Universe  outside  mankind  (and 
for  this  it  is  necessary  to  know  not  a  little  about  that 
Universe),  is  like  plucking  a  flower  from  root  and  stem 
and  expecting  it  to  live  and  grow.  The  blossom  may 
retain  its  fragrance  for  a  time,  but  its  vitality  is  gone. 
And  so  it  is  with  the  morality  of  precept  that  does  not 
spring  out  of,  and  find  its  support  in,  our  own  feeling  of 
oneness  with  the  life  outside  our  little  individual  selves, 
that  comes  from  a  sympathetic  knowledge  of  the  world 
of  which  we  are  a  part.  "Schooling,"  it  is  true,  may 
make  one  more  capable  of  committing  crime,  as  it  is 
likely  to  increase  one's  ability  in  many  directions;  it  is 
indubitable  that  a  knowledge  of  penmanship  is  a  con- 
dition for  the  commission  of  the  crime  of  forgery.  But 
he  would  be  a  fool  as  well  as  a  most  pitiable  coward,  that 
would  therefore  forbid  children  to  be  taught  to  write. 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY          179 

And  whatever  may  be  true  of  "schooling,"  the  EDUCA- 
TION that  makes  for  wisdom  makes  also  for  virtue, 
while  it  makes  no  less  for  happiness. 

Here  I  would  emphasize  again  the  truth  that  virtue 
never  really  demands  a  sacrifice  of  happiness!  At 
most  it  only  demands  the  sacrifice  of  the  lesser  to  the 
greater  pleasure.  The  man  who  gives  up  a  fortune 
and  a  commanding  position  in  society,  and  with  it  the 
possibility  of  marrying  the  woman  he  loves,  and  lives 
in  poverty,  because  of  conscientious  scruples,  is  happier 
than  he  could  have  been  without  his  own  self-respect. 
Not  alone  virtue,  but  his  happiness  demanded  that  he 
should  be  able  to  enjoy  his  own  self-respect  and  hold 
his  head  erect  before  God  and  man.  He  is,  it  may 
well  be,  less  happy  than  he  would  have  been  could  he 
have  had  at  once  self-respect,  wealth,  and  the  life- 
companionship  of  her  who  was  to  him  the  dearest  of 
women.  But  that  was  out  of  his  power,  and  he  chose 
thai  which  would  give  him,  not  the  greatest  happiness 
conceivable  (with  which  ethical  choice  has  nothing  to 
do!)  but  the  greatest  happiness  possible  for  him.  So  it  is 
always.  Even  though  one's  nature  be  low,  the  virtuoujs 
course  will  not  involve  in  the  case  of  such  a  one  a  sacri- 
fice of  happiness.  The  business  partner  of  the  man 
of  whom  we  have  just  spoken,  who  having  a  lower,  less 
sensitive  nature,  chose  to  keep  the  fortune  that  was  in 
his  possession  but  to  which  he  had  no  moral  right,  also 
chose,  no  doubt,  what  seemed  to  him  at  the  time  to 
promise  the  greatest  happiness  possible  for  him.  But 
had  he  foreseen  that  no  amount  of  pleasure  purchased 
at  the  expense  of  self-respect  is  equal  to  that  which 


180  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

self-respect  gives,  he  would  have  chosen  the  other  alter- 
native; and  had  he  done  so  he  would  have  been  happier 
than  it  will  now  be  possible  for  him  to  be.  He  may  be 
sleeker  and  fatter  than  his  former  partner,  but  he  can 
never  know  the  happiness  that  the  other  will  enjoy. 
A  low  nature  can  never  enjoy  the  height  of  happiness 
that  is  possible  for  a  high  nature.  It  may  also  be  true 
that  the  former  is  saved  by  his  more  insensitive  nature 
from  suffering  as  keenly  as  the  latter  can.  But  to  this 
it  may  be  answered  that  we  measure  men  and  things 
rather  by  their  positive  qualities  than  by  means  of 
negatives,  and  that  no  noble  nature  would  forgo  its 
sensitive  responsiveness  to  that  which  is  most  beautiful 
and  best,  in  order  to  be  rid  of  its  sensitiveness  to  evil.  A 
man  will  not  change  places  with  a  polyp  for  the  sake 
of  the  latter's  cold-blooded  incapacity  for  agony  (and 
ecstacy!).  Let  us  bear  in  mind,  when  the  unrighteous 
seem  to  triumph,  that  a  clam,  even  at  high  tide,  is  in- 
capable of  the  happiness  possible  for  a  higher  animal 
such  as  the  dog;  that  a  hog  can  never  be  as  happy  as  a 
man! 

One  thing  more.     We  have  already  seen  that  the 

conception  of  ethical  conduct  develops  with  the  growth 

of  knowledge  and  the  widening  of  human 

Morality  be-      relations.     To  the  savage,  that  is  moral 

comes  higher,  .  .  . 

the  greater  the  which  subserves  the  wellbeing  of  his  petty 

whole  becomes  .  .  .        ' 

of  which  man     tribe;  no  human  being  outside  the  tribe 

recognizes  him-  . 

self  as  a  part,      has  any  moral  claims  upon  him.     As  tribes 
confederate,  the  sense  of  moral  responsibil- 
ity spreads  outside,  to  take  in  the  members  of  the  fed- 
eration; and  gradually  it  extends  in  some  measure  to 


HAPPINESS    AND    MORALITY         181 

all  of  the  same  race,  and  at  length  to  mankind  and  to 
our  fellow  members  of  the  animal  kingdom.  But  this 
extension  is  imperfect.  The  most  highly  civilized 
peoples  of  today  still  feel,  as  a  rule,  a  very  limited 
moral  obligation  in  reference  to  foreign  peoples.  The 
discussions  of  national  policy  in  reference  to  commerce 
and  industry,  which  appear  in  high-class  magazines  as 
well  as  in  the  daily  press,  make  this  limited  sense  of 
fellowship  and  of  moral  obligation  very  evident.  Yet 
although  the  conception  of  morality  varies  with  time, 
place,  and  people,  and  sometimes  departs  considerably 
from  the  root  idea  and  becomes  quite  fantastic,  it  may 
still  be  fairly  asserted  that  the  underlying  meaning  of 
moral  conduct  is,  that  which  is  conducive  to  the  high- 
est wellbeing  of  the  whole  of  which  one  is  a  part;  and 
therefore  our  morality  ivill  be  higher  and  broader  accord- 
ing as  our  conception  of  that  whole  expands. 

Only  the  members  of  the  highest  races  recognize 

their  fellowship  with  all  mankind,  and  only  a  few  of 

the    most    cultivated    individuals    of    the 

The  highest       higher  races  have  any  adequate  sense  of 

morality  and  ^ 

the  highest  hap-  the  fact  that  the  whole  of  which  they  are 

piness  require  .  .  . 

the  recognition  a  part  is  nothing  less  than  the  Universe 

of  our  unity         .     r 

with  ail  that  is.  itself,  past,  present  and  future.  Until  a 
better  education,  with  the  wider  knowledge, 
deeper  thought,  and  more  sensitive  feeling  incident 
thereto,  makes  us  all  more  conscious  of  the  largeness 
of  our  true  self  and  the  infinity  of  our  interests,  no  very 
high  morality  can  prevail.  But  even  though  we  are 
still  as  a  rule  too  dull  of  apprehension  to  perceive  the 
evil  to  ourselves  therein,  it  remains  true  that  one  acts  in 


182  RELIGIO  DOCTORIS 

hostility  to  his  own  hedonistic  interests  (or,  in  other 
words,  decreases  his  own  possibilities  of  happiness) 
who  inflicts  an  unnecessary  injury  upon  any  living  be- 
ing, though  that  being  live  at  the  antipodes,  whether 
it  be  by  directly  or  indirectly  bringing  evil  upon  him 
or  by  depriving  him  of  an  opportunity  he  would  other- 
wise have  had;  and  that  he  also  injures  himself  who 
.unnecessarily  does  aught  that  shall  diminish  the  beauty 
and  perfection  even  of  inanimate  nature,  though  it  be 
in  that  part  of  the  world  most  distant  from  that  in 
which  he  himself  dwells! 

The  corollaries  of  this  truth  are  infinite.     It  means 

that  selfishness  (not  the  seeking  of  one's  own  good; 

that  is  innocent  and  right;  but  the  seeking 

Love,  which  is    of  one's  own  good  in  disregard  of  all  else 

sympathy,  is 

the  secret  both  and  at  the  expense  of  the  good  of  others), 

of  morality  and  .  .  D 

of  happiness,  whether  it  be  individual,  local,  or  national, 
never  "pays."  Some  day  we  shall  see 
clearly  that  the  "public-spirited  townsman,"  for  in- 
stance, who  secures  for  his  own  town  a  public  institu- 
tion that  the  interest  of  the  state  demand  should  be 
located  elsewhere,  is  not  only  not  a  good  citizen,  but 
that  he  has  injured  his  fellow  townsmen  as  well  as  the 
people  of  the  state  at  large  and  himself;  and  similarly 
that  a  national  policy  that  is  injurious  to  the  people 
of  other  nations  is  hostile  to  the  true  interests  of  the 
citizens  of  the  nation  that  adopts  it,  interferes  with 
the  most  healthy  and  symmetrical  development  on 
their  part,  and  decreases  their  happiness.  For  love  is 
the  law  of  life,  the  law  of  development  (physical,  mental 
and  emotional),  the  law  at  once  of  morality  and  of  happi- 


HAPPINESS  AND  MORALITY  183 

ness;  and  only  as  we  love  largely,  sympathizing  more 
and  more  fully  with  all  that  is,  can  we  attain,  either 
for  ourselves  or  for  those  that  are  nearest  to  us,  to  the 
fullness  of  happiness  that  might  be  ours  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  Beauty  of  the  Universe! 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

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